


Lightning in the Storm

by PrinceCat



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Desert Setting, Gen, Happy Ending, M/M, The Distant Future, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 12:57:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7574875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceCat/pseuds/PrinceCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nishinoya Yuu is Silver Lightning, the youngest driver in the official city races, and the best. When he stops in the middle of a race to rescue a stranger stranded out in the desert, his life changes forever.</p><p>[post-apocalyptic/dystopian AU // tananoya]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Stranger from the Desert

**Author's Note:**

  * For [affectionateTea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/affectionateTea/gifts).



> me: sees that the summer hols are "in the spirit of relaxation, vacation, and enjoyment"  
> me: *looks at fic* whoops
> 
> Anyways, to my intended recipient, I got a little carried away, but I really hope you enjoy it anyways!!

What first drew Yuu to racing was the speed. Flying through the air, the wind buffeting against his face, blowing the dust and the sand against his skin so fast it can cut him. The second, what makes him keep returning to the track, is the freedom. Maneuvering the twists and turns of the landscape, seeing the world outside the city walls. It isn’t safe to be outside of the city walls, out in the desert. But on a racer, the flesh-eaters and sand skippers can’t catch him.

When Yuu first started racing as a young boy, it was against the law, and he had to scavenge together a racer, and sneak out of the walls with the others just to participate. Eleven years have passed, and now, not only are the races legal, they’re government funded. The government seemed to realize how much audiences love to see the races, and now, instead of risking their lives creeping from the city during the night, the drivers are public celebrities, and leave the walls for the racetrack among crowds of cheering fans. It’s been five years since the transition, since the creation of the official city races. A lot of drivers stopped racing, after the government got involved, saying what was once an act of rebellion was being turned into a distraction for the populace, so they don’t question the government’s corruption. But Yuu was young, and didn’t care about the politics of racing. For him, racing would always be about the freedom.

Yuu is in the middle of a winning streak when his life changes forever. The day starts like any other. His bed is soft and plush now that he lives in the government-funded drivers’ quarters, a tall white building beside the Royal Mechanics’ workshop. After years of living on the streets, always on the run from the city guards and never feeling safe enough to get any good sleep, Yuu relishes every moment he gets in his bed. But it’s a race day, and racing is one thing he’d gladly lose sleep for.

Even the walls of his room are white, like the bed sheets, and like the entire building. Besides being in a better part of the city, the towering ivory walls are clear signifiers of the building’s importance, and it’s connection to the government and the crown. Yuu quickly realizes he’s probably going to be late, so he rushes to find his driver’s uniform and hurries down to the showers in his sleeping clothes. He catches sight of Daichi, Yui, and Hajime in the hallway. Like him, they’re young drivers, although he and Hajime have been racing the longest out of the four of them. Daichi and Hajime have similar builds, strong and dependable, although Daichi is slightly leaner. Daichi has black hair and a stern set to his face, and always gets terrible tan lines on his neck and face from his driver’s uniform. Hajime’s skin is similarly darkened by the sun, with freckles running across his nose, and deep brown eyes. Yui is one of the few female drivers, her dark brown hair cropped short so it curls around her face, with a deceptively slight figure, her uniform hiding her well-defined muscles. She often gets bad tan lines too, and the skin around her eyes is just a few shades paler than the rest of her face, thanks to the goggles now hanging around her neck.

“Yuu!” Daichi calls out to him, a scandalized expression on his face. “Are you seriously just going to the showers now?”

Hajime and Yui grin at Daichi’s nagging and Yui ruffles his hair roughly. “Relax, Daichi. He’s Silver Lightning, remember? If he showers as fast as he races, he’ll be just fine!”

“Right!” Yuu smiles brightly at Yui and claps her offered hand loudly in a high-five before hurrying on to the showers.

He’s clearly not the only driver running behind, when Yuu is getting dressed after his shower, Keiji, another of the younger drivers, is only just getting out too. Like Yui, it is easy to overlook Keiji’s physical strength because his figure seems slight, but his legs are long and thick with muscle. His face is strikingly beautiful, with sharp black eyes and a pointed nose. His skin is naturally dark, so he never endures the embarrassing tan lines or sun burns of the more pale skinned drivers. Though he is running even later than Yuu, Keiji remains as calm as he ever does, and strikes up a conversation with Yuu.

“How did you sleep?”

“Oh, well, thanks! Uh, you?” Yuu asks, wresting his shoulder guards on, over his pale sandy-coloured driver’s jumpsuit. The boiled leather of the outer armour reminds Yuu of freshly fallen chestnuts, a gleaming red-brown, the kind he would see sold in the black market when he was younger. There is similar protective armour on his elbows, hips, and knees, and his helmet of course, and the long gloves and boots are made of the same leather.

“Alright. You’ve forgotten your helmet and goggles,” Keiji says, pointing to Yuu’s pile of clothes.

“Ah, damn. I’ll see you round then, I’d better run!”

“Good luck,” Keiji says, offering Yuu a small smile and a wave.

Yuu gathers up his pile of sleep clothes and waves hastily at Keiji as he rushes out of the showers. “You too!”

Bolting back up the stairs, Yuu reaches his room on the third floor quickly enough, even if his legs are a little too short to confidently and quickly take the stairs two at a time. He snatches his helmet and goggles off the back of his door and chucks his unneeded clothes on his bed, before turning and rushing back down the stairs into the basement. There, he hurries through the underground passage connecting the driver’s quarters to the Royal Mechanics’ workshop. The basement of the workshop is a driver’s lounge, although it’s mostly empty now, as the drivers have probably all gone upstairs to get their racers and set off towards to starting line. Yuu grabs a cup and fills it with water from the dispenser, gulps it down, and repeats it once more before tossing the cup with the other dirty dishes and heading upstairs. He figures if he doesn’t have time for a proper breakfast, he should at least stay hydrated.

As he climbs the stairs up to the workshop itself, Yuu untangles the straps of his goggles. The workshop is enormous, with a high vaulted ceiling. The ceiling and walls are white, and the harsh white lighting makes it all a little blinding. Yuu snaps his orange-tinted goggles over his eyes, pressing them against his face until they stick, and slips his leather helmet onto his head and over his ears, flattening his unstyled hair down under it. Leaving the chin strap of his helmet unbuckled, Yuu makes his way over to his racer, perched on its metal frame. Koutarou and Tooru are fixing the wheels to the frame, to move the whole structure through the streets. Out of all the Royal Mechanics, Yuu knows Koutarou and Tooru best, as they are usually the ones working on his racer. Tooru is tall, with a trim waist and long legs. His hair falls in short bouncy brown curls, and his eyes are a matching brown, soft and knowing. Koutarou’s pale hair is pushed back behind a thick black headband, sitting in stiff, gelled spikes at the back of his head. He is quite well-built for a mechanic, and his face is broad and cheerful. They are both wearing their uniform, a pale teal jumpsuit, unaltered and buttoned all the way up to their necks, as regulation stipulates.

Yuu reaches them as they finish attaching the wheels. They stand up from where they were crouched to greet him, Koutarou stretching his arms over his head until his back cracks.

“All ready to go,” Tooru tells him, gesturing to Yuu’s racer with a flourish. “Off to meet your adoring fans then! You’re already behind schedule you know.”

Yuu grins at Tooru’s mock finger wag, as if he is nagging him, and mounts his racer, pulling himself on top of it before sitting securely in the saddle.

Koutarou smiles brightly and waves up at Yuu once he’s perched atop his racer. “Good luck!”

“Thanks!”

Then the pair of horses begin the pull the racer forward, as if they had grown tired of the conversation, and Yuu can only wave a hasty goodbye as the two mechanics are left behind in the garage.

The parade through the streets has already begun, beginning with the oldest, most respected racers. At the end, the younger champions, the current victors. As winner of the last four solo races, Yuu comes in right at the end. Beside him is Daichi, Grey Thunder, his partner in the duo races. Directly ahead of them are Keiji and Hajime, as the reigning champions of the duo races. The procession makes its way from the Royal Mechanics’ workshop to the garage where the race starts, at the edge of the city, built into the walls. The streets are lined with people, cheering and throwing scented scraps of fabric, as good luck tokens, at their favourite drivers. City guards in crisp grey uniforms stop the populace from getting too close to the procession. When Yuu and Daichi raise their hands to wave, the screaming from the crowds around them becomes even more loud and feverish, and people try to reach past the guards to aim their scraps of fabric better, so that they’ll land on the racer or its driver.

Their progress is slow, going no faster than the pace of the horses’ trot, and the unforgiving sun beats down on Yuu. He wonders each time if perhaps he’s gone soft, used to the cool, conditioned air of the driver’s quarters and Royal Mechanics’ workshop, and no longer able to withstand the harsh heat of the midday sun. Finally the long garage is in sight, small and dark beneath the towering grey expanse of the city wall. More of the Royal Mechanics are hanging around, instantly recognizable in their uniforms, and they set about unhooking the horses from the metal structures and wheeling them into place. The hum of the racers’ engines turning on begins to fill the air, and the metal structures supporting the racers are wheeled out from beneath them as they raise to a hover. Yuu’s racer is pulled into place last, and he switches on his racer’s engine after the teal-clad mechanic nods at him. His racer starts to hover, the metal structure is wheeled away, and the mechanics clear out of the garage. The gaping doorway to the street is closed, and with the sound of a heavy breaker switch, the garage is plunged into darkness. Yuu reaches under his chin and buckles his helmet straps, securing them tightly around his face.

Ahead of each racer, the garage doors shudder open, and the clear morning light blinds Yuu momentarily, as it illuminates the dark garage. He keeps his eyes on the two lightbulbs above his door, the left one lit up a vibrant blue, although through his heavily tinted goggles it seems a bright orange. He feels the temptation to glance at the other drivers on the racers beside his, but resists, not moving his stare from the lightbulb on the right, just waiting for it to light up, and send them all flying out into the desert. Tension thrums low in his stomach, and he raises himself off his seat a little in anticipation, his thighs clenched tightly around the hull of his racer, feeling the engine hum beneath him, his feet slotted securely in the stirrups. Despite the din of racer engines echoing around the garage, to Yuu, this moment is always the quietest.

There is a muffled click, and the second lightbulb flashes on. It’s as if the light sends a message straight to Yuu’s body, bypassing his brain entirely, the second he sees the light, he twists his hands around the handlebars and shoots off into the desert. The racetrack rushes along beneath him, and Yuu knows that the pre-marked track will soon narrow, as the racers spread out, some falling behind while other speed ahead. For those willing to risk it, for the daredevils like Yuu, there are shortcuts through the desert, off the track. But they come with drawbacks, that it might not be a shortcut after all, it takes more time, it could be fraught with danger. Those who know the track well enough know the good shortcuts, the ones that only end in disaster, and the ones that could go either way, for only the most skilled of drivers. Yuu is one of those drivers.

The first shortcut he takes twists and turns through spires of sand-coloured rock, groups of them cropping up around the desert basin like rocky forests. They’re the closest thing to a forest Yuu’s ever seen, and he navigates the sharp turns with an enviable finesse. Two other drivers follow him through the spires. When he returns to the track, there are only three racers ahead of him. Yuu briefly registers that one of them is Daichi, his racer painted black with a distinctive bright orange stripe wrapping around it. Then he looks past the racers ahead of him, past to the horizon, hazy with heat, the pale sky blurring into the dull colour of the sandy terrain. Sometimes Yuu considers driving straight off the track, right off towards the horizon. But he never does. Blinking, he refocuses on the race, and swerves to pass a racer, sliding into third place.

Another of his favoured shortcuts is coming up, and he drifts off the track, weaving between shifting sand dunes. He's the only one who ever seems to take this shortcut. Grains of sand skate off the top of the dunes and get blown into his face, causing brief pinpricks as they hit his cheeks at such a high speed. The dunes seem to line up, and Yuu has a straight shot through back to the track in the distance, except-

There’s something lying half-buried in the sand. Yuu’s sharp eyes pick it out immediately, despite it being almost completely camouflaged. He keeps an eye on it as he approaches it, and before he realizes what he’s doing, he’s slowing down. His racer slows to a hover a couple metres away from the… thing. It’s a body, he quickly realizes. His mind still hasn’t quite caught up with his instinct to go over to the figure lying in the sand, hasn’t reminded him of the danger. With such large sand dunes, the chances of sand skippers moving beneath the ground are high. There could be flesh eaters roaming around. The body could be infected, in the process of becoming a flesh eater. They could just as easily be dead. Yuu could still win the race if he left now. But he does not. If he would just look up at the track in the distance, he’d be able to see racer after racer skim by. But he cannot tear his eyes from the body in the sand. He feels... almost drawn to it.

As his foot hits the sand, sinking in just a bit, his mind seems to catch up to his actions, and he looks around, his heart beating wildly in his chest. The landscape is deceptively quiet, eerily empty, as if he is the only living creature in the world. Yuu returns his eyes to the body and approaches it tentatively, the dry air catching in his throat. As he reaches the person’s side, he sees the shallow rise and fall of their chest. They’re breathing. Lifting his goggles off his face onto his forehead, Yuu drops to his knees beside the stranger. He sets about brushing the sand off of them, taking in their appearance as he does.

The underside of the stranger’s heels and toes are blackened with grime, no doubt from traveling barefoot across the harsh terrain, but the raised arch of their foot is as pale as the white sands in the Eastern Wastelands. Their skin is cracked and dry. On their lips and knuckles and knees, the skin has broken up so much that it must have bled, leaving rust coloured stains where the blood was wiped at or dried up. They have strange, dull-coloured clothes, the colour of the sand around them, wrapped up around their small frame like tattered bandages. Their skin is darkened and heavily freckled from the sun, and their hair is shoulder-length and two toned. Around the roots, it is dark, like most of Yuu’s hair, but the rest is a golden yellow, just as the small tuft of hair that falls across Yuu’s forehead is. 

Once he has uncovered them from the sand, Yuu hauls the stranded stranger onto his back and maneuvers their limp body onto his racer. With the stranger’s body slumped up against his front and his goggles placed back firmly over his eyes, Yuu revs his racer again, and sets off at a slow pace, so as not to jostle the stranger into falling off. He heads back to the track, bare of racers, meaning they must have all passed by already. For some reason, Yuu feels no loss, no dejection at the realization that not only will he not win, he’ll be coming in dead last, for the first time ever. He feels excited, but at the same time calm, as if he was meant to find this person out here in the desert. He has never believed in fate before, but as he catches sight of the grey city walls rising from the sands ahead, Yuu can’t help but wonder.


	2. A Step Out of Line

The mechanics are in disarray when Yuu finally pulls through the finishing gates. Even Tooru and Koutarou are there, and Yuu has never seen them outside of the Royal Mechanics’ workshop before. Come to think of it, he’s never seen them outside, on the street, before. Their pale skin has always looked like it’s never seen sun before, so unlike Yuu’s skin, darkened and weathered from the harsh sun of the desert race track. Tooru spots him first amongst the little crowd of five mechanics clad in their colourful jumpsuits, and rushes over. He has a white cloth tied over his brown curls, and the beginnings of an angry red sunburn is starting across his the bridge of his nose and the tops of his cheeks. He looks desperately worried.

“Yuu! What happened to you?” Tooru stops short when he catches sight of the face in the bundle of cloth Yuu’s holding. “What is that? Is that a person?”

By now, some of the other mechanics have come over, and two medical officers in crisp white uniforms are exiting their station to see what all the commotion is about. Yuu’s contented feeling vanishes, replaced with a fear. He knows they are going to want to take the stranger away from him. There are no laws against bringing strangers in from outside the city walls, but only because nobody is stupid enough to do such a thing. Inside the walls is safety, so outside must be nothing but danger. A person from outside the walls could be infected, deceptively human-looking as they endure the weeks long transformation into a flesh-eater. They could be a member of one of the nomadic peoples who roam outside city walls. The local clan is known as the Sandstorm Nomads, and rumours about them circulate the city, that they are murderous savages, that they are cannibals, as bad as flesh-eaters, even more ridiculous ones, that they’ve mated with flesh-eaters and are a horrible hybrid between human and monster. But Yuu looks down at the stranger he’s saved, and does not fear him. He fears what the city will do to him.

“Yuu?” Tooru is standing beside his racer, his hand resting on Yuu’s knee. Yuu’s racer is still hovering, so he has to look far down into Tooru’s questioning face, which is only level with his shin, clamped tightly around his racer.

One of the medical officers suddenly grasps Tooru’s wrist and wrenches his arm away from Yuu, pushing him back into Koutarou, who catches him about the shoulders. “Don’t touch him,” the medical officer snaps at Tooru before turning to Yuu. “Cut the engine and dismount your racer now.”

“What are you going to do?” Yuu asks, finally finding his voice.

“Cut the engine and dismount your racer _now_ ,” the medical officer repeats, his voice unforgiving.

Tooru steps up beside the medical officer, clearly disgruntled at such a rough treatment. “We need to put the frame under first, or else the racer will collapse to the ground when it’s turned off.”

The medical officer stares at Tooru in disdain, before finally stepping aside, allowing the other mechanics to wheel the metal structure under Yuu’s racer. Yuu is familiar with most of them, and he sees in their faces and body language that they are wary and nervous. At first Yuu assumes they are scared of the person in his arms, but then he catches their hostile looks towards the medical officer. Considering his rude treatment of Tooru, who is well-liked among the mechanics’ ranks, it’s no wonder the medical officer is antagonizing himself to everyone present.

Once the frame is in position, Yuu has no choice but to flick the switch and turn the engine off, settling the racer into the padded frame. Before he can dismount, there is the distinctive sound of guards approaching. The heavy stamping of their polished boots on the dusty road and the clack of their baton on their belt is a noise Yuu learned to fear when he was younger, and lived on the streets. Even now, his heart pounds heavily in his chest at the sound, and he curls his arms tighter around the still unconscious stranger. The mechanics shuffle their feet, all of them looking as uneasy as Yuu feels. It’s easy for Yuu to forget, but a lot of the mechanics came from the streets, just like he did, and probably have the same fear of the guards instilled in them.

The second medical officer rounds the corner with six guards behind her. The most high-ranking guard steps up beside the first medical officer, and stares at the stranger with clear disgust on his face.

His eyes flick up to rest on Yuu’s defiant expression. “Dismount,” he orders.

Seeing no other recourse, Yuu slowly slides the unconscious body in his arms off the side before slipping down to the ground himself, keeping hold of the stranger around their waist, their body slumped back against him. He meets the gaze of the guard again, having to look up into his face now.

“What is that?” The guard indicates the stranger with a mere nod of his head, his hand clenched tightly around the black baton on his belt.

Trying to wet his still dry throat, Yuu swallows before answering. “I found him in the desert. He’s alive, but I think he needs help, because he was probably out there for a while, y’know?”

The guard flicks a finger towards the stranger, and addresses the two medical officers, “Take it.”

“Sir-” the first medical officer tries to protest, but he is cut off sharply by the guard.

“Silence. This creature has been brought inside the walls, it is too late to change that fact now,” he says, leveling another look at Yuu, his face twisted with disgust. “The gates won’t be opened until tomorrow, so we cannot be rid of it that way. It must be contained before it regains consciousness. Take it to the quarantine cells.”

“Hang on-” Yuu tries to get a word in, but two more guards step up behind their superior, staring Yuu down, and his words die in his throat, an old and visceral fear of the guards resurfacing, making a chill run up his spine.

The two medical officers come up to them, one unfolding a mechanized stretcher and setting it to hover. The second medical officer gently prys Yuu’s hands from around the stranger, giving him a sympathetic look while the guards can’t see her face. The first hoists the stranger onto the stretcher, holding his face away from the stranger as if he is leaking a noxious gas.

As the first medical officer leaves with the stranger, Yuu watches them despondently. He doubts he’ll ever see the stranger again. The second medical officer explains to the superior guard that she might as well perform Yuu’s re-entry examination now, but Yuu barely hears her. Tooru tries to reach out to Yuu to comfort him, but another guard stops him, blocking his arm with a quickly procured baton, and pushes him back a couple steps. It is common procedure not to have any contact with the drivers until they’ve had their re-entry examination by a medical officer, but Tooru seems to think these are extenuating circumstances, and narrows his eyes venomously at the guard.

Yuu feels a stinging in his eyes and realizes he’s crying. He drops his head to look at the dirt road below his feet, and feels the tears well up in his eyes. He feels no embarrassment at crying in front of people he barely knows, all he can think about is the person he thought he was rescuing from the desert, and how he probably doomed them by bringing them into the city. Tears hit the orange lens of his goggles, and begin to puddle against his cheeks.

A gloved hand touches Yuu’s arm gently, and he starts, looking up into the face of the second medical officer. She smiles and silently leads him into the medical station she came from. Sitting him down in the pristine white examination room, she unbuckles his helmet and removes his goggles for him, like a mother would for their child, and sets them aside. Yuu’s face feels hot and sticky, like it usually does after a race, but it’s wet from tears now too. He is silent as she cleans his face with a damp cloth, staring at the ground. Normally he would crow over such a pretty lady paying such attentions to him, but he can’t muster up the energy for his usual antics now. And she is very beautiful, tall and willowy, with long elegant fingers. Her eyes are a striking, cat-like green, and her hair is silvery, in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. After she wipes his face, she sits with him quietly until he raises his face and really sees her.

“Hello,” she says, smiling softly. “I’m Alisa. I hope you don’t mind if I look you over today, since your usual medical officer is probably off duty by now.”

“That’s fine,” Yuu speaks quietly, and he can barely hear his own voice. “Thanks.”

Yuu silently removes his gloves and boots, and all his outer armour, placing them with his helmet and goggles on the side-table. Slowly, he peels his jumpsuit off, leaving him in his shorts, and sits on the examination table again. Alisa goes through the regular procedure, checking him for bites, taking his blood and testing it for infection. When she’s finished, she helps Yuu apply soothing ointment to the parts of his skin that were exposed to the sun during the race. Usually, the cream is a cool relief to Yuu’s burning skin, but today it feels unpleasantly cold and clammy, and sends a shiver down his spine. He realizes his hands are cold and numb, and he feels lightheaded, as if in a feverish cold sweat. Alisa catches him when he sways forward, and shines a bright light in each of his eyes, a concerned look on her face.

“You’re alright. You’ve just had a shock, too much adrenaline. You need to rest, I’ll call a guard to escort you back to the driver’s quarters,” Alisa says, smiling and stepping away from Yuu, letting him lean back against the wall beside the examination table.

Picking up the receiver, Alisa spins the dial around twice on the telephone, and waits while the line is connected. Still feeling lightheaded, Yuu barely hears her over the blood rushing in his ears.

“Hello, yes, this is Medical Officer Haiba Alisa, I’m requesting a guard escort,” she speaks into the receiver and waits as the person replies on the other end of the line.

She frowns before replying, “Nishinoya Yuu, yes… Here? It’s not that dark out yet- ...I see. I’ll tell him. Goodnight sir.”

Alisa replaces the receiver in its cradle and wrings her slender hands together for a moment before turning to Yuu. “It’s getting late, so I was instructed to keep you here for the night. I will get you some clean clothes to sleep in, and there is a shower if you’re feeling up to it. If not, you can wipe yourself down with a sponge.”

Yuu leans his head back to look out the skylight, and even though it makes his head spin, he can tell it’s only early afternoon. Hardly very late at all. Alisa brings him clean clothes and a dish of water with a sponge, like she promised, and shows him to another room, with white walls, no windows, and a little bed. She brings him some food, and a glass of water, before bidding him goodnight. It’s only then he realizes he hasn’t eaten all day, and feels a little foolish. Yuu looks around the sterile white room as he eats, and though he’s feeling more clear-headed, he feels a weight in his chest at the thought of sleeping in the windowless room. He feels trapped, cut off from the rest of the world, and he hates it. His room in the driver’s apartments has two little windows, and even that makes him feel stifled and heavy-hearted at times.

When he finally lays down to sleep, washed and in fresh clothes, Yuu’s mind drifts back to the orders Alisa got over the telephone. Why is he being kept here? Perhaps they are planning on killing him in his sleep. Strangely enough, the thought doesn’t disturb him, he simply closes his eyes, ready for sleep. He had never felt so at peace with the idea of dying before, but now, it almost brings him a certain calmness. When he falls asleep, he dreams of people he has never met before, and the stranger from the desert. Yuu hadn’t seen the stranger’s eyes, but in his dreams they are bright and open, a piercing golden brown, like his own.

It seems nobody kills Yuu in his sleep, and he wakes up the next day, groggy and sore, but very much alive. When he leaves the room he slept in, he spots Alisa, and Koushi, his usual medical officer, whispering to each other in the hall. Koushi is shorter than Alisa, his hair an ashen sort of brown. His face and body are soft and round, and his kind eyes make him seem instantly understanding and trustworthy. But now, his eyes are wide with shock as Alisa speaks to him. She stops as soon as she sees Yuu watching them, and the two medical officers come over to meet Yuu.

“How are you feeling?” Koushi asks him. Both he and Alisa’s faces are carefully neutral, their facial expressions revealing no emotion in particular.

“I’m okay. Am I going back to the driver’s quarters today?”

“Yes,” Alisa says, before glancing down the hall behind her. “A guard has been sent to speak to you, and then he will escort you back.”

Koushi and Alisa lead Yuu back to the examination room he was in yesterday, and leave him alone with the guard.

“I’ll see you after the next race, Yuu,” Koushi tells him, smiling as he leaves the room.

“It was nice meeting you,” Alisa says, leaning down to speak quietly to Yuu. “If you’re ever in need of any help, I would be happy to give it.”

Then Yuu turns to face the guard. He is unfamiliar, with dark hair just starting to turn grey, and a distrustful expression. Yuu can tell he’s a high-ranking officer, based on his uniform. Too high of a rank for escort duty. Maybe that’s why he looks so displeased.

“Driver Nishinoya Yuu?”

“That’s me.”

The guard makes a sour face at Yuu’s casual response. “You are not to mention your unauthorized activities yesterday to anyone amongst the drivers or mechanics. You will not mention the creature, and if asked what delayed you, you will simply say you lost sight of the track during the race. Understood?”

“What happened to him?” Yuu asks, feeling braver all of the sudden, brave enough to ask such a question.

“That is not your concern.”

“Well I’d like to know anyways,” Yuu says, his tone casual, but his eyes pin the guard, hard and unwavering.

“You aren’t-” The guard mouths silently for a moment, as if conflicted about what to say, and then sighs in aggravation. “The creature has been quarantined.”

“I want to see him.”

Clearly frustrated, the guard makes an incredulous face at Yuu’s persistence. “You can’t, that’s what quarantine means! Now, do you understand what I’ve told you? Nobody else is to know about this.”

“Fine.”

Yuu keeps his word, and goes straight up to his room when he’s returned to the driver’s quarters. He stays confined within his room, avoiding the other drivers at meals. He figures he’ll just lay low until everyone else has forgotten the whole ordeal, and everything will go back to normal.

Yuu only realizes how much his life has changed after the next race. It was a solo race, and he had won. Returning to the city, the crowds had cheered just as jubilantly as ever when Yuu had stood up in his racer’s stirrups and crowed in victory. But when he returns to the Royal Mechanics’ workshop along with the other drivers, he notices something is off. None of them are speaking to him. Although that’s hardly odd, even those he considers his friends among the drivers are silent, caught up in their own thoughts. Perhaps they’re upset with him for avoiding them the last few days. Even Daichi brushes Yuu off when he approaches him. So instead of trying to socialize, he goes to check that his racer has been delivered, and finds Tooru and Koutarou standing beside it. They are not working on it, but are speaking to each other, and while their conversation is quiet, their faces are angry and worried, as if they are arguing. Tooru sees Yuu first, and falls silent immediately, prompting Koutarou to look over too. They stand looking at him, and they seem almost scared. Not scared of Yuu, but scared of something that he can’t quite place. Koutarou breaks eye contact, looking down at the ground, his face scrunched up in a frown, and Tooru makes his way over to Yuu.

“Is something wrong?” Yuu asks.

Tooru’s brown eyes are wide and imploring, and he speaks in a soft voice, “Yuu, I’m sorry. We’re, we’re not allowed to service your racer here anymore.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“We’ve been given orders not to service your racer. I’m sorry Yuu. I can give you the names of some other mechanic’s workshops, but Kou and I aren’t allowed anymore. Nobody here at the Royal Mechanics is, or we’ll lose our position. We can prep you before the races, and store your racer here in the workshop with the others, but nothing else.”

“Why?” Yuu asks. He’s more confused than angry, although Tooru’s treating him like he expects him to be angry.

“We weren’t given a reason, just the order. ...Look, I need to get back to work, I’ll meet you in the lounge afterwards, okay?”

Yuu nods silently, trying to comprehend what Tooru had been saying. He shuffles through the workshop back to the lounge, and takes a seat in an armchair in the corner, where the other drivers can easily ignore him. Except… every so often, a couple of them will glance over at him quickly, and look away guiltily when he catches them starting to stare. Do they _all_ know? Do they all know that Yuu isn’t being served here at the Royal Mechanics’ anymore? Do they know _why_? Yuu feels dizzy, and he stares at the floor, wide-eyed, trying to keep his balance in his chair. It feels as if they are all whispering about him behind his back.

As promised, Tooru finds him in the lounge about an hour later.

“I left Koutarou to hook up your racer to the horse harnesses and everything. I suggest you take it to be serviced tomorrow. It’s too late today, so you probably shouldn’t be roaming the streets alone with a top-of-the-line racer. Here’s the directions,” Tooru says, handing Yuu a thin slip of parchment. “This garage is run by the Ukai family. I was trained by Keishin, when I was younger. He’s one of the best.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Yuu stares down at the directions, still feeling a little numb. He looks up at Tooru’s face, seeing how his eyebrows pinch together with worry. Yuu almost feels touched, that Tooru seems to be so upset about this. “Why do you think this is happening? I know you don’t _know_ , but…”

“Well,” Tooru starts, before pausing and looking around the lounge. It’s mostly empty now, except for Hajime, asleep in a plush chair in the far corner. Tooru’s expression lightens for a moment, affording his sleeping friend a fond smile, his eyes soft. He turns back to Yuu and takes his elbow gently, sitting down with him on a bench by the breakfast tables.

“I think this is about the person from the desert, the one you brought back to the city,” Tooru tells Yuu, his voice low, and quiet. “The government doesn’t like that. The Crown doesn’t like that. Especially because of who you are. You’re the most well-known, well- _loved_ driver right now, and a lot of people owe you more loyalty than they do to the government or the Crown. If people start hearing about what you did, they might support you, and people might start questioning how the government handles... things beyond the walls. Didn’t you, when they took that kid away from you? Who knows where he is now… But the government can’t just…  excommunicate you, because you’re so high profile. They’re just trying to make it very difficult for you to continue racing, without alienating your fanbase. And trying to send you a message. They don’t want you pulling another stunt like this.”

Yuu and Tooru sit in silence as Yuu tries to process all that Tooru had just told him. He looks down at his own hands, which he’d been twisting around in his lap. His palms are calloused from the handlebars of his racer, like most drivers. Looking back up at Tooru, he seems less worried, his face calm now, and eyes watchful of Yuu.

“He was a Sandstorm Nomad, the person you found. Their outfits are very distinctive. And his hair- well, never mind. It was very… interesting,” Tooru says, briefly eyeing Yuu’s own two-toned hair. “Can I ask why you picked him up? It was very dangerous.”

Yuu shrugs, looking down at the floor contemplatively. “Well, I mean, it was the right thing to do. Or at least it wasn’t right to leave him to die in the desert. I don’t know if it was right to bring him into the city. He might have been better off in the desert. Then the other nomads could’ve found him, maybe. But I felt, oh I don’t know… I felt drawn to him. Like I was meant to find him. …Does that sound stupid?”

“No,” Tooru answers earnestly, and his face serious, not teasing at all.

“I suppose I’ll never see him again now anyway,” Yuu says, standing up from the bench and stretching. “I’m gonna turn in then. Should I grab Hajime, or have you got him?”

“I’ve got him. Good night. Sleep well, Yuu.” Tooru stands too, smiles, and offers Yuu a quick wave before walking over to Hajime.

Yuu makes his way over to the passage slowly, surreptitiously watching Tooru and Hajime. Tooru bends over his dozing friend and ruffles a hand through his hair, then running it down the side of Hajime’s face. His hand lingers on Hajime’s cheek, waking the driver, who takes Tooru’s hand in his own and squeezes it briefly. Hajime smiles up at Tooru with a tenderness rarely seen on his face. Yuu quickly takes the last few steps out of the room and into the hall, before he is discovered spying. He feels a distinct pang of jealousy at the thought of them, having someone that they feel so close to. It’s not like Yuu doesn’t have friends amongst the other drivers and the mechanics, but he doesn’t share that kind of close bond with anyone. 

Yuu finds it difficult to fall asleep, his mind so full with the events of the day. When he finally drifts off, his dreams are haunted by the face of the stranger from the desert, his face twisted in pain and anguish, trapped within walls of pure white.


	3. Back to the Gutter

Early afternoon light is pouring through the small window in his bedroom when Yuu wakes up, and he dresses and eats hastily, wanting to get his racer to Tooru’s suggested mechanic before it gets too late in the day. To avoid other drivers, Yuu forgoes the underground passage and risks stepping out into the scorching midday heat to walk to the Royal Mechanics’ workshop. Mechanics in their teal jumpsuits are bustling all around the workshop, and while some of them wave to Yuu, they all give him a wide berth as he makes his way over to where his racer is stored. He doesn’t see Tooru or Koutarou anywhere, but there are two horses leashed to his racer’s frame, each with a feed bag around its muzzle. After taking the feed bags off of them, Yuu mounts one of the horses, with some difficulty, and leads them out onto the street.

As he makes his way to one of the poorer parts of the city, the buildings become shorter, and browner, and dirtier. The road is narrower and the people’s clothes are dull and torn, except for the odd crisp black of a guard’s uniform. Yuu is used to it, he grew up in a neighbourhood just like it, a little to the east. But now he feels out of place, well fed and clean, riding a healthy horse, with an top-of-the-line racer towed behind him. He has to keep glancing back to check on his racer. If he had seen such a thing when he was younger, Yuu knows he wouldn’t have let such an opportunity pass by. There are probably children lurking around who are just as desperate as he was. He isn’t so naive that he thinks everyone else’s life improved when his did. Yuu’s glad when he reaches the address, feeling a little less like an outsider in the familiar setting of a racer garage.

Yuu looks around the mechanic’s workshop slowly. It's a lot dirtier and dingier than the Royal Mechanics’ workshop. The walls of corrugated metal look flimsy, like a harsh wind could easily rip the sheets of metal from the beams, and there are several spots of rust eating away at the metal. There are two racers sitting on wooden frames, both in much worse shape than Yuu's own. One of them is being worked on by two young mechanics, about Yuu’s own age. Yuu watches them work and joke with each other. The bigger one has been relegated to passing tools to the other. He has broad shoulders, although the way he hunches over makes him look smaller than he probably is, and the sleeves of his navy blue mechanic’s jumpsuit are rolled up to expose his muscular forearms. His face is wide and brown, and he has long brown hair, pulled back into a bun, and the scraggly beginnings of a beard. The other mechanic keeps popping in and out of the racer’s left engine, but Yuu finally gets a good look at him when he finishes, and begins screwing the cover of the engine back on the hull of the racer. His hair is shaven close to his skull, and the top half of his jumpsuit is unzipped and hangs around his waist, his form-fitting undershirt showcasing the lean muscle of his back and arms. His eyes are sharp, and he has a plaster across the bridge of his nose, as if it was recently broken. He grins lopsidedly at the other mechanic as they finish their task. They both have smears of grease all over themselves and their jumpsuits are tatty and worn in places.

The taller mechanic spots Yuu first, not greeting him, only nudging the other mechanic. At his colleague's nudge, the second mechanic looks up to catch Yuu’s eye. His eyes widen, and his mouth falls open in surprise. He turns and says something excitedly to his coworker, shaking his arm back and forth, before fixing his eyes firmly on Yuu. He approaches quickly, wearing a nervous smile.

“Hey! Er, good… morning,” he starts out shaky.

The other mechanic calls out from across the garage, “It's the afternoon!”

“Oh, well, good afternoon then, sorry,” the mechanic greeting Yuu says, rubbing the nape of his neck sheepishly. “What can I help you with?”

“I have a racer that I need serviced, and this garage was recommended to me.”

“What about the Royal Mechanics?” The mechanic seems perplexed.

“Oh! You know who I am then…” Yuu says, feeling strangely bashful. It’s one thing having crowds of people screaming his name, it’s quite another having a conversation with someone who knows of Yuu because of his celebrity status. He realizes that since the legalization of racing, he’s never really socialized outside of the other drivers and the mechanics of the Royal Mechanics. Not that he socialized much before then either.

“Yeah, ‘course I do, you’re Silver Lightning! Well, I’m Ryuu. Tanaka Ryuunosuke. But please, call me Ryuu! It’s real nice to meet you! I’m a big fan! Sorry, is that a weird thing to say?” he asks, laughing nervously.

“No, it’s okay!” Yuu grins, relieved that this encounter is just as foreign to Ryuu. “To tell you the truth, I’ve never really met, uh, a fan before either. Like, one-on-one I mean. Please, call me Yuu.”

Ryuu lets out a laugh, less nervous than before, as if he’s just as relieved as Yuu is. “So… uh, you want me to look at your racer right now? I just finished up what I was doing.”

“If it’s not too much trouble-”

“Tanaka, what the hell is this?” A voice calls from a side room, the one the other mechanic had gone into. A man comes through the doorway, a frown on his face. He seems older than Yuu by several years, his hair is bleached blond and held back by a headband, like Koutarou’s usually is. He has the beginnings of crow's feet at the corners of his eyes, but his eyes are fiery and lively with anger. “I told you about the fucking races!”

Ryuu turns away from the older man to make a sour face, mumbling, “Fuckin’ Asahi, what a tattle!”

Still sitting up on the horse, Yuu feels out of place again, and rather wishes he was at least on their level, not sat high above them. It makes him feel like some sort of monarch descending down to the poor riff-raff. Unfortunately, getting off the horse isn’t something he can do quickly, or with dignity.

“I just went to see a few, I don’t see what the big deal is, Ukai!” Ryuu defends himself to the older man, apparently Ukai. He must be the owner then, or part of the family that owns the garage, like Tooru said.

Somehow, Ukai’s expression becomes even more stormy. “I wasn’t talkin’ about that, but I’ll be sure to chew you out for that later. I meant him,” he says, pointing an accusatory finger at Yuu.

“I was sent by Oikawa Tooru,” Yuu blurts out before Ryuu can retaliate. “He said he was trained here, by an Ukai. Keishin I think?”

Ukai’s face doesn’t exactly soften, but he seems to resign himself to the situation. “I see. That’s me then. What brings a great driver such as yourself down to the shitty part of town? I’m surprised a rich kid like you even made it here in one piece.”

“ _Boss_ , c’mon,” Ryuu says, clearly embarrassed at Keishin’s treatment of Yuu. The other mechanic peers out of the back room, looking concerned, and maybe a little curious.

“They aren’t allowed to serve me at the Royal Mechanics’ anymore, so Tooru suggested this place.” Yuu’s impressed with his own self-restraint, how polite he’s being, but he knows it won’t last long.

Keishin opens his mouth to say something, but the mechanic hovering at the door quickly interjects. “Um, it’s three! Don’t you need to go to the scrap metal yard? Takeda won’t wait around all afternoon.”

“Ah, fuck, I forgot. Look Tanaka, do what you want with this guy, but we’ll be having _words_ when I get back, got it?”

“Yes boss.”

Yuu watches Keishin go, marveling at the number of swear words he’s heard in the last few minutes. There are only a few drivers like Hajime or Keiji who swear semi-regularly, but it’s never so loud and confrontational, usually muttered under their breath.

“Sorry about that,” Ryuu says, looking properly mortified. “He just really hates the official races.”

“It’s fine, I’ve had worse.”

The second mechanic comes over to stand beside Ryuu. “Uh, do you not know how to get down from your horse?”

“Asahi!” Ryuu turns to him, looking scandalized.

Yuu laughs, the tension ebbing away a little. “I, I can, it’s just not very graceful. It’s a long way down for me.”

With that, Yuu dismounts, jumping down to the packed dirt of the workshop floor. Ryuu seems a little surprised that Yuu is quite so short, but Asahi is unphased, and peers right over his head at his racer.

“So what’s wrong with your racer then?” Asahi asks.

Yuu turns to look at it and shrugs. “I don’t think there’s anything big… it usually gets serviced after every race, that’s all.”

“Well, I guess we can do that,” Ryuu says, looking at Asahi, who nods in agreement. “We don’t usually get racers in that are in such good condition. As you can see.”

Yuu lashes the horses to a post by the door and sits on a table beside them, rubbing their noses, trying to keep them calm in an unfamiliar setting. He watches the two mechanics work on his racer. It’s unfamiliar to him too, he’s never watched Tooru or Koutarou work on his racer for too long. Yuu has some rudimentary knowledge of racers, having helped to build his first one himself when he started racing years ago. There have been advancements in racer technology since then though, and the official races are blessed with government funding, providing them with the best of the best when it comes to racers. Even the drivers and mechanics are top-of-the-line. It’s clear from the occasional lost expression on their faces that there are some elements of Yuu’s racer that Ryuu and Asahi haven’t ever encountered.

But they get it done, and it works just fine the next race. Yuu wins, and is surprised when he doesn’t feel the usual joy at his victory. Unable to hide his sombre expression, he gets several odd looks as he is paraded through the streets. He had been meaning to keep an eye out for Ryuu in the crowds, as clearly he frequents the races, but Yuu completely forgets, so consumed by his own empty sorrow. He almost forgets that he can’t just take his racer in to the Royal Mechanics’ workshop and leave it there for them to deal with. Tooru waves at him as he leaves the workshop, but Yuu can only muster a quick upturn of the lips, barely even a smile, before he makes himself scarce. He can’t seem to figure out the inexplicable sadness that has overtaken him.

When he sleeps, he dreams of finding Ryuu out in the desert, sometimes alive, sometimes a dried up corpse, and of Alisa caring for the stranger from the desert, wiping his face clean of dirt and grime the way she did for Yuu. He dreams of a storm brewing on the horizon, unlike one he’s ever seen before, not wind and sand, but heavy grey clouds hanging low in the sky.

Slowly, Yuu begins to enjoy his weekly trips to see Ryuu and Asahi, enough so that he sometimes visits them without his racer. It grounds him, being back in the gutter where he was born, and it feels like a relief to not be under the constant scrutiny of the guards that pepper the richer parts of the city with a higher density. There are still guards in the poorer sections of town, but they’re too busy bullying widows and roughing up local children to care about Yuu anymore. Sometimes Yuu wonders if the many guards that made his life hell as a child know who he grew up to be.

Yuu learns Ryuu has an older sister, Saeko. He learns Asahi used to be a driver in the underground races until he injured his shoulder, and swore off racing forever. He meets Ukai Ikkei, the owner of the garage, and Ukai Keishin’s grandfather. He learns why Ukai Keishin hates the official races.

“He used to compete in the races, before the government intervened. He loved racing, but he couldn’t stand it being politicized,” Ryuu tells Yuu. Yuu hasn’t brought his racer this time, and the two of them and Asahi are sat around a dilapidated old racer, talking. “A lot of his friends carried on racing though, even under the government, and  think he felt betrayed. A couple of officials came around looking for mechanics to recruit for what would become the Royal Mechanics. Me and Asahi weren’t working for him at the time, just hangers-on, really… but it really tore him up, seeing all his friends and all these young people being rounded up and, I dunno, brainwashed by the government…”

“That’s stupid,” Yuu says with finality. He isn’t angry, just frustrated that someone could brush aside what was such a big decision. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

“Oh really,” a voice speaks from behind Yuu, across the garage. Yuu turns to see Ukai Keishin standing in the doorway to the side room. “And how the hell would you know?”

“I was there. I raced before the government took over too,” Yuu says, feeling defensive at the older man’s harsh words.

Ukai’s face twists into a frown, but Asahi speaks first, his eyes wide. “ _Really_? How old would you have been? Nine?”

Yuu turns to Asahi and Ryuu’s slack-jawed faces, and looks down at his lap briefly in embarrassment. “Eight. I lied and told them I was twelve.”

“And they believed you?” Ukai scoffs, his bad temper cooling off. He seems almost amused now. “You look twelve now, when you’re what? Nineteen? You probably looked like a newborn baby at eight.”

“Hey!” Yuu bristles. Asahi and Ryuu try to hide their laughter, and Yuu can’t help but crack a smile. “Okay, okay, I had to whittle it down to ten in the end. They still let me race. Less regulations when the government wasn’t involved.”

“I can’t believe you’ve been racing from the beginning! And you’re like our age!” Ryuu says, his eyes shining. “How old were you when the transition happened?”

“Fourteen,” Yuu replies, serious now. He can see on Ukai’s face that he remembers the transition well too, the raids, the interrogations, being detained for days with no reason. “You shouldn’t think so poorly of the people who continued racing, or joined the Royal Mechanics. Tooru had the chance to make a lot more money, to support his sister and her son. A lot of us had family to support. A lot of us didn’t have anyone at all, so we didn’t have anything to lose.”

There is a long silence, as Ryuu and Asahi process what Yuu said. Ukai stares off into space, deep in thought. Finally, he comes over and slowly lowers himself to sit on the ground with them.

“I know,” he says. “Most of you were just kids. That’s what I hate about the official races. I couldn’t protect kids like Tooru and Hajime from the government. Their families needed the money, and there was nothing I could do to help them, so I just had to stand aside and watch them being taken advantage of. Work for the same system that put their families in the gutter in the first place, the system that employs the guards who used to beat them in the streets for nothing. I wouldn’t’ve trusted the government with my livelihood. One misstep, and they’ll toss you back where they found you. Or worse.”

The younger Ukai’s words resonate with Yuu, who had just made such a misstep. He had hardly been tossed back onto the streets, but he does feel a certain alienation from his friends now, as if he’s now a second-class driver.

“Tell Oikawa to visit with you next time, that ungrateful runt never comes to see me,” Ukai says gruffly, lifting the somber mood from the group.

They sit and talk for a while longer, about lighter things, and Yuu feels a little better. Although he feels like he’s being cut off from his old friends, at least he has made some new ones. He returns to the driver’s quarters in high spirits, but his dreams that night are dark and frightening. The stranger sits in a white room, slowly being drained of every last drop of his blood, and Tooru struggles against the rough hands of black-clad guards. Every time Tooru opens his mouth to cry out, no sound will come, but in the sky, a flash of light crackles through the grey clouds.

Yuu thinks that perhaps his dreams are becoming prophetic, as the next morning, when he goes down to collect his racer, Tooru is there, exchanging words with a set of six guards. It is a race day, and Yuu can’t imagine what could be so important that the guards would risk delaying a race. Before any guards can catch sight of Yuu, he is silently but urgently flagged down by Hajime, hidden from the guards behind the bulk of his racer.

Koutarou stands off to the side, fiddling in the engine of Hajime’s racer. Yuu can tell he isn’t really focusing on the machine, because Koutarou always pokes his tongue out when he’s concentrating. He's keeping an eye on the guards for Hajime and Yuu.

“What’s wrong?” Yuu asks Hajime once he too is hidden from the guards.

Hajime grasps Yuu’s shoulders gently but firmly, a worried look on his face, and Yuu thinks for just a moment, that this must be what it feels like to have a father. The feeling is swept away quickly with the urgency of Hajime's words.

“You need to get out of here,” Hajime says, his voice more frantic than Yuu’s ever heard him. “The guards are here for you, you need to leave. Tooru said you’re familiar with the Ukai’s garage, that he’s sent you there, that would be the best place to go-”

“Wait, I don’t understand. What about the race?”

“It doesn’t-”

“Hajime!” Koutarou calls suddenly, his face panicked, his hands moving uselessly as if he doesn’t know what to do with them. “The, the-”

“Hey, stop!” Tooru’s voice echoes around the high ceiling, silencing any chatter. “Stop!”

Before Yuu can react, a guard rounds the side of the racer. Koutarou steps in front of him, but another two guards come around the other side. They drag Yuu and Hajime out from behind the racer, and see Tooru similarly detained, a guard at each arm. The guard holding Yuu has an arm around his neck, wrapped tight enough that Yuu is concerned he’ll be lifted off the floor.

Yuu sees Tooru flick his tongue out, as if tasting the air, and watches his eyes dart around. Yuu recognizes that well enough, Tooru is searching for the closest exit. “Stay calm,” he says, and even though Tooru’s looking at the floor now, Yuu can tell he’s speaking to Hajime, who is looking more and more incensed.

The movements of the other mechanics and drivers have ground to a halt, everybody in the building watching them with bated breath. The top guard stands forward, releasing Tooru, so only one guard is holding him, twisting Tooru’s arms roughly behind him.

“Driver Nishinoya Yuu? You’re being detained. There are medical tests that need to be run,” the guard speaks, watching Yuu with calculating eyes. He jerks his head at the guards flanking Hajime, and they release him, returning to the others standing around Tooru.

Hajime looks relaxed, but Yuu can sense a tense energy running through him.

“Don’t try anything funny,” Tooru suddenly calls out, probably directed at Hajime again. Then he leans forward and smashes the back of his head into the nose of the guard holding him. The other guards all startle, and Tooru darts forward towards Yuu. The arm around Yuu’s neck has slackened slightly at the shock, and Yuu catches Tooru’s determined gaze and bites the guard’s forearm, hard. With a shriek, the guard releases Yuu, and Tooru snatched up Yuu’s hand. They run towards the back exit, away from the throng of guards. 

Tooru doesn’t tear his eyes from their destination, but Yuu chances a look back. The other drivers and mechanics have gathered together into a crowd, and block the guards from easily pursuing Tooru and Yuu. They make it out the door, and Yuu can hear a clamour rising from the crowd inside. Tooru quickly and wordlessly helps Yuu up onto a horse waiting in the stables, and mounts behind him, taking ahold of the reigns. They leave the stables at a brisk pace, not so fast that they seem suspicious, but fast enough to put distance between them and the Royal Mechanics’ workshop. Yuu casts a glance at the white buildings behind him and wonders, for a moment, if he’ll ever see them again.


	4. Secrets of the Past

Yuu and Tooru stay silent the entire journey. Tooru has wrapped them both in blankets he grabbed from the stables, and though they’re stiflingly hot, it helps them to remain unrecognized, especially in their distinctive uniforms. They dismount when the streets become more narrow and crowded, and Tooru leads the horse along, weaving through the people expertly.

Still in a daze, Yuu doesn’t realize at first that they aren’t heading to Ukai’s garage, as he first thought. They’re in the right neighbourhood, but the street is wrong. On one side of the street, there are dilapidated three storey buildings, probably residential. On the other side, there’s a shallow incline down into a wide cement canal, the water that once ran through it long since shut off.

A young boy runs up to Tooru, his head shaved like Ryuu’s, and his two front teeth missing. He peers under the blanket Tooru has thrown over his head, his eyes lighting up when he figures out Tooru’s identity. “Tooru! Isn’t it a race day? What’re-”

“Shh, don’t worry Takeru, I’ll tell you later, okay?” Tooru puts a hand on the kid’s head, and bends down as if telling him a secret. “I need you to go to the market with your friends and sell this horse, as quickly as you can. Don’t dawdle, it needs to be sold as soon as possible.”

Tooru hands the reigns over to the boy, who looks confused but nods and leads the horse away. Some other kids come rushing up to him and Tooru watches them for a moment before turning and entering one of the houses, brushing aside the curtain over the doorway. He stands aside to let Yuu in first.

The walls are a dull beige and the plaster is dry and cracking. It is sparsely furnished, and there are piles of sand blown up into the corners of the room. There are colourful scarves pinned up on the walls, as if trying to liven up the place. It might work if most of the scarves weren’t tatty and faded from the sun. Tooru silently makes his way to the only other doorway in the room, and goes through to another small room, this time with floorboards and two bed-spreads.

Yuu has never felt so comfortable with silence before. He feels like he should be screaming. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but he follows Tooru just as silently into the small room. When Tooru starts to pry the floorboards up in the corner, Yuu finally speaks up.

“What’re we doing?”

“Well,” Tooru says, pausing to huff from the exertion of pulling a floorboard up, “I’m getting you to safety, but first I need to confirm a theory.”

“Why were the guards gonna arrest me?” Yuu asks, squatting down beside Tooru. “I thought it would’ve been about the stranger, from the desert, but one of them said something about medical tests. Shit, do you think I’m infected?”

“No,” Tooru says, pulling things out from a gap under the floorboards he’s just removed.

Yuu’s eyes grow wide when he realizes what they are, and he gasps. “Are those books? I thought you were trying to get me to safety, not involve me in more crimes…”

“I’m just- Ah-ha!” Tooru cries, pulling a piece of looseleaf parchment out of the book he’s flipping through. He unfolds it carefully and holds it up, looking between it and Yuu’s face. Nodding, he sits down properly, and gestures for Yuu to do the same.

“Look at these pictures,” Tooru says, holding the parchment so they can both see it. There are drawings of four people, just their face and shoulders, and a couple paragraphs of text. The people are children, maybe around four years old. Each child has deep, piercing eyes. Tooru points to one silently, and Yuu recognizes the hair. The crown of the child’s head, the roots of their hair are coloured darkly with ink, but the rest of their hair is uncoloured, left the sun-stained yellow of the parchment. Even the face looks like the stranger from the desert, with cheeks just a little rounder from baby fat.

Yuu looks up at Tooru and says as much, “It’s the stranger from the desert.”

“Okay,” Tooru nods, and points to the second child. “What about this one?”

The second child has shorter hair, most of it inked in, except for an uncoloured tuft falling across the forehead. Yuu can’t say anything strikes him about the face, that makes him think of someone he knows. But when he glances up to see the look Tooru’s giving him, he realizes.

“It’s me.”

“That’s what I thought,” Tooru says, his eyes scanning the parchment. “I found this- well. I stole this from a vault when I was younger. It says that these children are “Cured”, that they-”

“Hang on!” Yuu cries, staring at Tooru’s face in shock. “You stole this from a vault? You can _read_? I had no idea you were some kind of seasoned criminal! Can Hajime read too?”

Tooru looks a little bashful, and rubs his nose awkwardly. “Just a little. He always thought it was a waste of time, but I mean, there must be things that the government doesn’t want us to know, things that we can discover by reading, or else they wouldn’t have outlawed it.”

“So what does this say?” Yuu asks, after a long pause. Tooru had sounded a little like Ukai Keishin, and Yuu wonders how many people he knows have the same distrust of the government. He had never really thought about it that much. He remembers hating the guards, and fearing them, but when he was younger he never connected them to the government, never saw the entire system and hated each piece of it.

“It says there was an old scientific facility, where they were conducting tests on flesh-eaters. They developed a cure. Actually, it’s capitalized, so it’s like, extra important, the official name for it. _The_ Cure. But it wasn’t really a cure, more of a treatment done to fetuses, that makes them immune. They’ll never become flesh-eaters. Better yet, if you inject others with their blood, those people become immune too. Unfortunately, only four babies were treated, and then four scientists were given blood transfusions, before the base was attacked by a horde of flesh-eaters, and destroyed. Two scientists were killed, mauled to death but not infected, and the children, about four years old then, were separated, taken far away by whoever could get their hands on them. Their hair is the clue, the brown and blond. This was written by one of the last Cured scientists, before he died, to let the world know to look out for these four kids. To use them.”

“And you think I’m one of them?” Yuu asks, dazed. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t understand half of what you just said… I mean, I grew up here, in the city. I’ve never been anywhere else…”

“Would you remember? You would only have been four.”

“Right. So what do you think I should do? Turn myself in, right? If I’m really one of these kids, they can use my blood to cure people!” Yuu smiles, the implications starting to hit him. “It would be safe to leave the walls, we wouldn’t be trapped in here!”

But Tooru frowns and shakes his head slowly. “I don’t know, Yuu. I wish I had that kind of faith in the Crown, but I don’t. You really think they’re going to want to help everybody? The danger of the flesh-eaters is a way to control us, keep us afraid, something we need their protection from. If you turn yourself in, I doubt you’ll end up helping the people you want to help. They want you because you’re a liability.”

Yuu looks down at the deep brown of the floorboards, his eyes stinging. “Of course. I’m so stupid. How could I think- ...what do you think they did to him?” He points to the stranger’s four-year-old face on the parchment.

“I have no idea,” Tooru says, getting to his feet. “We need to get to Ukai’s. This is listed as my home, the guards will probably be coming here first, looking for us.”

Yuu scrambles to his feet, and follows Tooru back out onto the street. The Ukai’s garage is only two streets over, and they make their way over there quickly, keeping hidden in the horse hair covered blankets from the stables. Tooru leads Yuu through a door he’s unfamiliar with, a big metal one with hinges and everything, into what Yuu realizes is the garage’s side room. Tooru peers out into the main space of the garage, only to turn back to Yuu with a frown.

“There’s a mechanic out there, but I don’t know them,” he says. “I was hoping Keishin would be here.”

Yuu moves to look around the corner, and sees that it’s only Asahi, slowly polishing an old racer.

Before Tooru can stop him, Yuu alerts Asahi to their presence. “Psst! Asahi, c’mere,” he calls out.

The confounded look on Asahi’s face when he catches sight of them almost makes Yuu laugh. He hurries over to them.

“Yuu, what are you doing here?” Asahi asks, joining them in the side room. “I thought it was a race day, Ryuu has gone off to see it and everything… Who is this?”

“This is Oikawa Tooru! See, he’s coming to visit Ukai after all, hmm,” Yuu says, trying to ease Asahi into the truth of their being there. He panics easily, and Yuu knows that’s the last thing they need.

Suddenly a voice calls from the main garage space, making Tooru grab Yuu’s arm, ready to run. “Asahi! Asahi, you won’t believe- Where are you?”

Ryuu rounds the corner, and a similar confused expression plays across his face when he sees Yuu and Tooru. “Yuu? What happened, I thought for sure… The race was cancelled, there was an announcement saying that a driver and a mechanic were wanted by the guard, and the others have been confined to their quarters for insubordination. _You’re_ who they’re after?”

“I’m afraid so,” Tooru answers for Yuu. “You don’t happen to have anywhere for us to hide, do you?”

Ryuu nods, and he and Asahi take them to the Ukai’s home. They sit in the front room quietly for a moment, but Ryuu’s curiosity gets the better of him. “What happened?”

Tooru glances at Yuu, who nods. “Tell him.”

Yuu barely listens as Tooru relates the story to Asahi and Ryuu. There is another crushing silence when Tooru finishes, the other two unsure what to make of the story.

“You’re not going to be safe anywhere in the city, Yuu. It doesn’t matter where you go, they’ll find you eventually,” Tooru says, rubbing his forehead in agitation, as if willing his mind to come up with a solution.

“Excuse me,” a voice from the doorway calls, “but I may have an idea.”

Ukai Ikkei is standing in the doorway, looking the same as the last time Yuu saw him, ill-fitting clothes hanging off his wiry frame, a little scruff of white hair at the back of his head and spots of age dotting the rest of his bare head. His hands are dry and bony, and there are deep wrinkles across his forehead and around his mouth. He takes a step into the room and slowly lowers himself to the floor, knees cracking in protest.

“Tooru, you said that kid, the other Cured, is with the Sandstorm? So, all you have to do,” he says, addressing Yuu this time, “is bust that kid out of the quarantine facility, and have him take you to them.”

The four young people in the room are quiet, expecting the elder Ukai to explain his plan further. He does not, and they glance at each other, gauging how seriously each of the others are taking him. Tooru looks skeptical, and Asahi looks like it’s the most harebrained thing he’s ever heard. Ryuu looks cautiously optimistic.

Finally Tooru speaks up, saying, “Aren’t they a nomadic people? It’s been over a month since Yuu brought the other Cured back, so wouldn’t the Sandstorm have moved? Y’know, the Sandstorm _Nomads_?”

“No, no,” Ukai tsks, shaking his head in exasperation. “They call themselves the Sandstorm, but city folk tacked the “Nomads” onto the end, because if we ever see them, they’re always roaming around in the desert. They have a base.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Asahi asks, clearly unconvinced.

Ukai flashes Asahi an unimpressed look. “I have contacts. ...I used to know the leader. We lived on a base together, long ago.”

Yuu can see Tooru thinking, cogs turning in his head, but for once, Yuu reaches the conclusion first. “You mean the base where they developed the Cure. You were there, weren’t you?”

The old man sniffs in disdain, looking off to the side as if trying to decide what to tell them. “Yes, I was there. I wasn’t a big deal or anything, I only fixed shit when it broke, like I do now. But I was friends with one of the scientists, Yasufumi,” he says, a nostalgic smile creeping across his face. “He and I escaped, with some others, including Keishin, and one of the kids. One with the long hair, mostly blond. I had no idea that another kid somehow got brought all the way here, to the same place.”

“Why did you come to the city if he stayed out in the desert?” Tooru asks.

“I didn’t think there was much of a choice. It was the city, or that godforsaken cave. It’s not like there were a lot of us, I didn’t think we could survive out there. So I took Keishin, and I left. Sometimes I think about going back, but I’m old now. I chose the city, so I might as well die here.”

There is a pause as the group process the old man’s words. Yuu looks down at his hands in his lap. They feel stiff and dirty, he hasn’t had access to water to rinse them with since he and Tooru left the comfort of the city centre.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Ryuu speaks up, breaking the silence.

Yuu nods. “I agree. The stranger- the other Cured, or whatever, he’s my responsibility. I brought him into the city, I thought I was helping him. Now I have the chance to take him home. I might as well, if I get caught trying to get him out of the quarantine facility, it doesn’t matter ‘cause they’re after me anyways.”

“Yuu, this is really risky…” Tooru says quietly. He isn’t sold yet on the plan, but Yuu has already made up his mind.

“I’ll go tomorrow, at night.”

“I’ll come with you,” Ryuu says, looking at Yuu in earnest.

“If you come with me, won’t you have to leave the city too? What if they catch us? Wouldn’t it be better if Tooru came?” Yuu asks, turning to look at Tooru. “The guards are already looking for you too.”

Tooru doesn’t answer right away, and doesn’t meet Yuu’s eyes, instead staring intently down at his hands. “I… I can’t Yuu…” he says, quietly, his voice unsteady. Yuu can see that Tooru’s eyes are glistening with tears. “My sister, Takeru… Hajime. I can’t leave them, Yuu. I’m sorry.”

“Tooru, it’s okay.” Yuu reaches for Tooru and puts a hand on his shoulder, firm and reassuring. “I understand.”

“It’s settled then, I’m coming with you,” Ryuu says. “You’ll need help, you won’t be able to do it alone. You’ll need a racer, or some kind of transport, to leave the city once you’ve got him. I’ve made up my mind.”

“Hang on, hang on!” Asahi waves his hands in front of himself in protest. “How are you even going to get in to the quarantine facility in the first place? It’s a secure area, you can hardly parade in there, even if you weren’t wanted by the guards. Only medical officers are allowed in.”

Yuu’s eyes light up, as he remembers someone, someone who had once offered him her help. “I know a medical officer who can help us.”

“Who?” Tooru asks. “Koushi?”

“Nope.” Yuu grins confidently. “Alisa.”


	5. A Daring Escape

Haiba Alisa walks quickly and confidently up to the checkpoint in front of the quarantine facility. She thinks she should be nervous, but she feels nothing but a swell of pride in her chest. In front of her, she wheels a large sealed laundry bin, full of fresh clothes for the people kept in the facility. Hidden amongst the clothes are Yuu, and his friend Ryuu, and she is helping them rescue the boy Yuu brought back from the desert.

Flashing her identification to the guard at the checkpoint, Alisa is let through to the courtyard, and then into the enormous white building. She can’t help but crack a grin, but luckily she well known enough by the medical officers in the building, and her smile doesn’t make her look suspicious. In fact, a couple of other medical officers she passes in the hall even smile back at her. She has never felt quite at home in the ranks of the medical officers. Most of them are well-off, children of government officials or even with blood relations to the Crown. But a few, like Alisa, got their positions through hard work, by desperately clawing their way up from their impoverished beginnings. And no matter how friendly and congenial they are, someone like that will always be seen as inferior. Most of the second class medical officers are stationed by the racetrack, to perform re-entry examinations on the drivers. But Alisa has made it further. She is often told that she is too beautiful, too kind and graceful, to have come from the streets.

The part of the building that holds the quarantined people is in the basement. The lift that takes Alisa down a floor is old and rarely serviced, and it shakes and jumps as it descends. Each time, Alisa is surprised when she makes it down without the lift breaking down. There is only one guard stationed in the basement, and he lets Alisa into the quarantined area, through a thick metal door, after she has donned protective gear over her crisp white uniform.

“Thank you, Tobio,” Alisa says, waving at the young guard. He seems surprised each time she acknowledges him, and hesitantly waves back, before the metal door slides shut with a loud click.

Then she removes the lid from the laundry bin, and Yuu and Ryuu climb out. Alisa motions at the to be quiet, and leads them around the corner. A long hall of cells stretches out in front of them, each fitted with a large pane of green glass, for viewing the patient within. The hall is dark, and the little light that there is seems to be tinted with the same eerie green of the glass. Alisa can see that Yuu and Ryuu seem frightened, as if they expect monsters to suddenly lob themselves at the glass from within the cells, scrabbling to get free. But Alisa knows there are no monsters in here. Only people.

“He’s at the end of the hall,” Alisa whispers to them, pointing towards the large door at the end of the hall. “That room is only used when they want to study the patient. I’ll unlock it.”

So she does, and Yuu goes in, rushing over to the stranger from the desert. He is only asleep, and after Yuu shakes his shoulder a few times, he wakes up, looking shocked to see Yuu there. Alisa wants to stay and watch the reunion, as Ryuu is from the doorway, but she has a task to get done. If she takes too long, that will alert the guard outside, who may come to investigate, and will raise the alarm if a patient is missing.

Alisa moves down the hall, entering each cell to leave fresh clothes and retrieve the dirty ones. She greets each patient, although they rarely respond. Most of the people here are too far gone to know how to speak to a human anymore, their faces drying and twisted, sharp teeth beginning to protrude from their mouths. Their nails are long, fingers bony and reaching. For many, the laundry run is unnecessary, as they have lost the presence of mind to even change their clothes. Alisa remembers what they looked like, who they were before the infection. Sometimes it feels like she is the only one who does, so she forces herself to remember each face, each name. There was a purge only a week ago, and now half of the cells are empty again, unneeded patients killed, their humanity lost forever.

Yuu and Ryuu return, and introduce the stranger as “Kenma”. Alisa knows, she has spoken to him many times on her laundry rounds, so she gives him a knowing little smile and a wink, and says, “It’s nice to meet you, Kenma.”

Kenma nods, a tiny little smile of his own creeping across his face. He has changed into the clothes Yuu and Ryuu brought him, out of the jumpsuits of the quarantined patients, white with a yellow dot over the heart. The three of them climb back into the laundry bin, and Alisa seals it. She presses a large red button beside the exit, and the guard on the other side of the door lets her back through. As she rides the lift back up to ground level, Alisa realizes that she is now nervous, a tension twisting and turning in her stomach. They’re so close to freedom, one mistake now could cost them everything.

Back down the hall, out into the courtyard, and out onto the street, Alisa feels as if she is holding her breath. Once out of sight of the quarantine facility, she maneuvers the laundry bin into a back alley, and pulls the lid back once more. Yuu, Ryuu, and Kenma climb out once more, and Alisa can sense an excitement within them, a hope, now that they have made it this far.

“Don’t be reckless,” Alisa tells them. “Good luck. I’ll send my brother to the Ukai’s place, to tell everyone you made it.”

“Wait,” Yuu says. “Thank you. Stay safe. They might suspect you, once they’ve found out Kenma’s gone.”

Alisa stands up straight and lifts her face to the sky, taking a deep breath of dry, desert air. “Don’t worry about me,” she says, looking back down into Yuu’s concerned face. “The winds are changing, so I think it’s about time for other things to change too, don’t you? I’ll be alright.”

With nothing left to be said, Yuu, Ryuu, and Kenma wave goodbye to Alisa as she wheels the laundry bin out of the alley. She watches them dart out from the alley, towards the city wall, only a few streets over. When she loses sight of them, she returns the laundry bin to the main hospital building, and goes home. She does not return to work the next day, and no one else is left to remember the infected dead, rotting away in the basements of the city.

* * *

Yuu, Ryuu, and Kenma make it to the wall without trouble, and they find Yuu’s racer right where Tooru said Hajime would leave it, hidden in the corner of the starting line garage. Ryuu gives Yuu a leg up onto his racer, and then Ryuu and Kenma pry the garage door in front of Yuu open. They work quickly and silently, but as soon as the garage door has opened wide enough for Yuu’s racer to fit through, an alarm goes off, blaring through the garage.

“Get on, quickly!” Yuu shouts at Ryuu and Kenma over the din, snapping them out of their startled state.

Ryuu helps Kenma up onto the racer, and then climbs on himself. When Yuu flicks the switch and turns the engine on, Ryuu reaches a leg down and kicks away the frame that was supporting the racer.

“We good to go?” Yuu yells, snapping his goggles over his eyes. Ryuu and Kenma both have ratty old goggles from the Ukai’s garage, but Yuu still has his own orange-tinted ones from his daring escape with Tooru.

There is the sound of a mechanical door opening, and the three of them turn to see the door to the street opening, black guards’ boots visible through the opening.

Ryuu whips his head back around and yells, “Go!”

“Hold on!” Yuu shouts back at them, and he feels Kenma wrap his arms around his waist tightly. He cranks his handle bars back as roughly as he can, and they go shooting off into the desert.

They bolt through the desert for a few minutes, Yuu instinctively following the track, until Kenma shakes his arm and says, “Slow down?”

Yuu complies quickly, and the landscape around them comes into focus as they slow down. “Where to then?” Yuu asks, glancing back at Kenma.

“North from here. But a little east. Like, north-north-east.”

“Okay.” Yuu nods, before leaning to look past Kenma. “You okay, Ryuu?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah,” Ryuu says, scanning the horizon with his mouth hanging open. “I’ve just never been outside of the city before, y’know?”

“Of course!” Yuu grins, looking ahead of them again. “Well, this is it. It’s pretty much all sand from what I’ve seen.”

“There’s more,” Kenma says. “More than sand, I mean. Nekomata, he’s sort of like my father, he has old maps, and books, and books with maps in them, and there are all sorts of lands according to them. Um, how much do you know about the Cure, Yuu?”

“Not much, honestly. Like I said, Tooru had this big ol’ parchment with our faces on and some writing, and he explained it to me, but I didn’t understand all of it.”

“We were born at a desert base, south-west of here. It’s nothing but sand-covered ruins now, because of the attack. There are still some salvageable supplies, which is why we sometimes go and scavenge there.”

“Sorry, who’s we?” Ryuu asks.

Yuu can feel Kenma’s hair brush his neck when he turns to address Ryuu. “The Sandstorm. Nekomata used to live on the base, and he took me and ran when it was attacked-”

“Hang on, is this uh, what did old man Ukai say? Yasufumi? Or something?”

“Yes, Nekomata Yasufumi. How did you hear his name?”

“Well,” Yuu says. “Ryuu works for one of his old friends, from the base. Ukai Ikkei. They escaped together, but split up once they got here apparently.”

“Oh, well-” Kenma starts, but is quickly interrupted by Ryuu.

“What the fuck is that?!”

Yuu and Kenma turn to see what Ryuu is looking at, and in the distance, off to their left, they see nothing but shifting dunes. “I swear, there was something…”

“We should speed up, it was probably a sand skipper,” Kenma says, a bit too calmly for the situation, in Yuu’s opinion.

Yuu nods and speeds up the racer, keeping his eyes trained on the stretch of land ahead of them.

“Holy shit…” Ryuu mumbles, and Yuu looks over in time to see it.

The enormous bulk of a sand skipper is moving through the sand dunes off in the distance. It’s mottled brown hide slipping through the sand like a slow-moving snake, diving below the surface before rising and diving again. Though they can’t see it’s front clearly, Yuu knows its cavernous mouth is large enough to devour them in one bite.

“Keep your eyes ahead, Yuu,” Kenma reminds him. “Your racer is making a lot of noise at this speed, meaning we might attract flesh-eaters.”

“The noise won’t attract that thing?” Ryuu asks, panicked.

Kenma shakes his head. “No, sand skippers are deaf, and they don’t actively hunt humans. We’re only in danger of it coming over and accidentally killing us, so our best bet is to get out of the area. Flesh-eaters are attracted to sound. I’m surprised more don’t show up at the city races,” Kenma says, his voice raised over the din of the engine at full speed.

“There,” he speaks again after a pause, and raises his hand to point to some black specks on the horizon, approaching fast. “Flesh-eaters. Make sure your legs are drawn up.”

And they’re fast, Yuu never knew that about flesh-eaters, how fast they can run. There’s a whole horde of them, too many to count, their skin shriveled and darkened like dried fruit. He can hear their claws scrape at the bottom of his racer, a few falling only for new ones to grab at them in turn. Yuu is terrified, for himself and Kenma, because he doesn’t know how seriously to take this whole Cured nonsense, but most of all for Ryuu. He’s sitting at the back of the racer, the most vulnerable, and whether the Cure is real or not, Ryuu is not Cured. Worst of all, Yuu can’t do anything but keep his eyes ahead, can’t look back to check on them, can’t protect them in any way. He just has to keep driving, and hoping that they’ll be okay.

Finally, a craggy outcropping rises over the horizon, a cliff that they’re at the bottom of.

“Kenma?” Yuu calls out, not knowing where to go.

“We’re almost there, just keep heading for the cliff!”

Keeping his eyes on the cliff, Yuu begins to see black holes in the cliff, like doorways. There is a big one straight ahead, a little ways up the cliffside. Yuu squints, and sees figures standing in the biggest opening, and he feels Kenma waving his arms at them. A rope ladder is slung down, and with the flesh-eaters still hot on their tail, Yuu doesn’t stop the racer until the front of it dings against the cliff.

“You go first!” Kenma urges, pushing Yuu up out of the saddle and onto the ladder.

Though he desperately wants to look down to make sure the others are safe, Yuu knows that they’ll be safest if he concentrates on climbing the ladder. He doesn’t hear any cries of pain, so he hopes that means they’ve all gotten onto the ladder safely. Once at the top, he quickly turns to help Kenma, and then Ryuu, off the ladder and into the cave. A few people stand before them as they lie on the cave floor, panting from the exertion of the climb and the thrill of the chase. An old man steps forward, his face severe, and unforgiving.

Yuu looks up into the face of the old man, clenching his hands into fists in anticipation. The old man’s face is creased and dry, like yellowing parchment, his eyes sunken and shoulders sloping down in his old age. He is short and portly, swaddled in sand coloured robes. Instead of helping any of them up, he turns and calls over his shoulder to his companions, his hands clasped tightly behind his back.

“Get the test kits for these two,” he says, before turning to address Kenma. “Welcome back, Kozume. You had best stay here while we test your friends. Who are they?”

Kenma sits up, but doesn’t stand, so Yuu and Ryuu stay sitting as well. Yuu thinks that maybe Kenma is purposely trying to stop them from standing up. It’s clear the others in the cavern don’t trust them yet, and kneeling, they would seem like less of a threat.

Kenma looks up at the old man, showing no sign of happiness at being home again, and speaks, as if to a military superior, “They are from the city. This is Yuu, he rescued me from the desert, and brought me back to the city. Along with Ryuunosuke, he helped me escape again. I believe Yuu is another Cured.”

The old man nods, turning to scrutinize Yuu as a young man comes up behind him with a medical kit of some kind. The young man’s eyes are dark and have a wise depth to them, despite his young face, and his black hair is parted neatly. His clothes are different from the sandy robes Yuu sees on most people around the cavern, his shirt and trousers are black and fit his body well, falling in crisp lines as if it is tailored for him. It looks like a guard’s uniform, but where there should be stripes signifying rank on the lapel, there is nothing but an odd grey mark, as if the stripes were there once but have since been torn off.

The young man kneels down in front of Yuu and smiles reassuringly. “I’m Chikara. I’m just going to take some blood from you, to make sure neither of you are infected.”

He draws a square piece of black cloth out of the medical kit, folds it in half into a triangle and ties it to cover his mouth and nose. Then he chooses a needle from within the kit, and glances up at Yuu, taking his right elbow gently. Yuu nods, silently agreeing to cooperate. Ryuu is restless beside him, and Yuu feels as if the air is charged with a nervous energy as Chikara pulls the plunger of the needle towards himself, and it fills with Yuu’s blood. Yuu knows he wasn’t even scratched by the flesh-eaters that were chasing them, but the horrible possibility of turning into one still hangs over their heads like an angry storm cloud. When Chikara is done with Yuu, he moves over to Ryuu, stowing Yuu’s blood safely in the medical kit and bringing out a clean needle. Yuu watches with morbid fascination as the sharp needle pierces the vein in the vulnerable inside of Ryuu’s arm, as the needle’s chamber fills with deep red blood. Finally, Chikara packages away the medical kit, and presses a sticking plaster over the pinprick on Ryuu’s arm, to match the one he gave Yuu. He nods to the pair of them and stands up.

“I’ll test these right away,” Chikara tells the old man as he walks by, his voice muffled slightly by the cloth still tied across his face. “Tetsurou should be along shortly.”

“Wait, I’m coming with you, Ennoshita,” the old man stops Chikara in his tracks, and turns to speak to Kenma, “Take these two to the quarantine room, Kozume.”

The old man then follows Chikara off into the depths of the cavern, and Yuu looks over at Kenma expectantly. Kenma stands slowly, dusting the sand off his clothes and glancing around the cavern searchingly before looking down at Yuu, still sitting on the ground.

“The quarantine is just a precaution,” Kenma reassures them. “Although it’s hardly relevant anymore. Before, if the infection went untreated, it could fester and spread among us, without us knowing. But everyone here is cured now. Anyways, follow me.”

Ryuu and Yuu scramble to get to their feet as Kenma begins to walk further into the cavern, and they hasten to catch up to his head start.

“You said if the infection went untreated… So what’s the treatment?” Ryuu asks, looking concernedly into Kenma’s face.

Kenma only glances at him briefly, before they reach a doorway hewn into the cavern wall, and pulls aside the heavy curtain drawn across it, ushering them inside. He answers as they enter the quarantine room warily.

“The treatment is death.”


	6. Return to the City

Yuu and Ryuu settle down on the bedding mats in the quarantine room as Kenma readjusts the heavy curtain across the doorway. The mats are fairly well-padded, but it’s difficult to entirely disguise the craggy cavern floor they’re lying on. It reminds Yuu of when he was younger, and not in a good way. He feels selfish for missing the soft bed afforded to him by the Crown, as a driver in the official races. Even worse, he feels the sting of tears in his eyes at the thought of never seeing the other drivers again, or the mechanics. Instead of wallowing in his own self-pity, Yuu forces himself to listen to Ryuu and Kenma as they talk. Ryuu is grilling Kenma for sand skipper facts.

Before Yuu can even think of joining the conversation, the heavy curtain across the doorway is shoved aside carelessly, and another of the Sandstorm charges through the door. He stands still briefly, assessing the layout of the room before zeroing in on Kenma and moving quickly towards him. His eyes are hooded and sunken in deep sockets, with dark circles beneath them, and his black hair is wild and unruly. He too is wearing sand-coloured clothes, loose trousers and a shirt with excess fabric hanging around his neck, that could probably be pulled up to protect his head and face from the elements. Kenma immediately stands to greet him, allowing himself to be pulled into the arms of the taller man. Yuu catches a glimpse of his face, and Kenma finally looks happy to be home. The stranger’s long fingers grasp the fabric of Kenma’s shirt tightly, and they stay entangled for such a long time that Ryuu and Yuu share an uncomfortable look with each other, both feeling like intruders.

Eventually, Kenma withdraws from the other man’s embrace, although he allows him to keep an arm slung around his shoulder.

“You shouldn’t be in here you know,” Kenma tells the other man, frowning up into his face. He then turns to Yuu and Ryuu, as if only then remembering their presence in the room, and has the decency to look bashful. “This is Kuroo Tetsurou, another Sandstorm.”

“Call me Kuroo,” he says, a lazy smile crawling across his face. “Ennoshita should be back with the test results soon. Shortie here must be the possible Cured, yeah?”

Bristling a little at the slight, Yuu’s face crinkles into a frown.

“Don’t be unkind Tetsurou,” Kenma chides, before Yuu can blurt out anything rude.

Kuroo looks affronted, placing a hand mockingly over his heart. “ _Kenma_. I’m never unkind.”

Looking unconvinced, Kenma takes a step towards the door. “You two should rest. When the flesh-eaters clear out, I’ll see if we can go and salvage your racer, okay?”

“Okay,” Yuu says, nodding. He feels numb from the events of the day.

Kenma and Kuroo leave the room, and Yuu can’t think of anything to say to Ryuu, so he lies down on the bed mat. He never thought he would feel so miserable to be outside of the city. But he can’t help thinking about the people he’s left behind. Whose lives he’s probably ruined. Tooru, Alisa, anybody who depended on them. Ryuu had a family, and because of Yuu, he’s probably never going to see them again. Yuu feels just as trapped as ever. He misses his home. Not the driver’s quarters, or the city, but the people. His friends.

“Hey. Are you okay?”

Yuu raises his head to see Ryuu looking at him, concern etched on his face. Yuu nods, and lies back down, closing his eyes. Ryuu is in the same situation, he doesn’t need to be burdened with Yuu’s complaints. He probably misses his home just as much.

“Yuu…”

Ryuu’s hand is very warm and firm as he touches Yuu’s forearm. His palm is broad, and Yuu opens his eyes to glance down at it. At Yuu’s scrutiny, Ryuu withdraws his hand, and apology on his lips. But Yuu catches his hand before it can get too far, capturing it with his own, touching each of Ryuu’s knuckles with his thumb slowly. Ryuu squeezes Yuu’s hand reassuringly, and Yuu finally tears his gaze from their hands, looking up into Ryuu’s face. He is smiling softly.

“It’s okay,” Yuu whispers, his face sombre, as if the moment will be ruined if he speaks too loudly. “We should sleep. A lot has happened.”

“D’you miss the city?” Ryuu asks, his voice low, as if he too understands the importance of moment. He doesn’t meet Yuu’s eyes, instead staring intently down at their clasped hands.

“I… I miss people, more than I miss being in the city. I miss my bed. I worked so hard to get where I was… sorry. I wasn’t going to complain.”

Yuu rubs his thumb across Ryuu’s knuckles again in apology.

“That’s okay, I asked. You had more to lose. I mean, miss Asahi. I hope he’s okay. And Ukai too I guess. And Saeko of course. So that’s about it.”

“Your family.” Yuu runs his other hand through his hair, long since lost its style, and sighs, sitting up. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you for help, asked you to come… If I hadn’t-”

“Yuu,” Ryuu interrupts, drawing Yuu’s hand closer to him. “If I didn’t think it was important, I wouldn’t’ve come. I wanted to, you didn’t make me, okay?”

“Okay,” Yuu says, his voice breaking. This time he doesn’t try to hide it as his eyes fill with tears.

Ryuu releases Yuu’s hand, only to pull him into a hug. Yuu clutches at the back of Ryuu’s shirt and buries his face in Ryuu’s chest. He can feel Ryuu shaking as he begins to cry too, and they both cry until they’re too tired, and they fall asleep in each other’s arms. For once, Yuu’s dreams are silent.

The next morning, they are moved from quarantine. Chikara has confirmed that their blood is clean, and made what Kuroo cryptically said was an “interesting discovery” about Yuu’s. They are taken to see Nekomata.

“You are indeed one of the Cured children. I had my suspicions when I first saw you, and now they have been confirmed,” Nekomata says, sitting on a bench hewn from the cave wall. They are in another small room, an off-shoot of the main space. Kenma is there too, and Chikara. “Welcome. I suggest we have your friend here given some of your blood. I don’t like having liabilities.”

Yuu and Ryuu look at each other, finding a similar dazed expression on the other’s face.

Nekomata continues, “I like your racer, young man. It reminds me of someone I knew long ago. But more importantly, it gives me hope for the future. You see, I have long held a hope of travelling far away from here, to a better place. To leave the desert. Unfortunately, we have one old transport, and only a few camels left, nowhere near enough to take us all. I think you can help us.”

“You want us to steal racers from the city,” Yuu says.

“Yes,” Nekomata answers, a sly smile crossing his face at having been found out. “Am I asking too much from you?”

“Well, I’m wanted by the guards in the city, and Ryuu probably is too. It won’t be easy. Besides, we can only take two at a time, if we each drive one. Do you even know how to drive a racer, Ryuu?” Yuu asks, turning to Ryuu.

Ryuu shrugs. “I could try…”

“I have an idea,” Chikara speaks up. He has been standing silently beside Nekomata since the meeting began. “You must have friends, or family in the city, ones who know about driving. Bring them too, help them escape, so you can use more racers. We’ll be going to a better place. Besides, anywhere is better than the city.”

“You’re from the city, aren’t you?” Ryuu asks him.

“Yes. I can come with you, and we can hide out in the city for a few days, gathering supplies and making contact with people. Anyone who is coming with us, I can give them a blood transfusion.”

“So we go back to the city, to get supplies, and everything,” Ryuu says, glancing around to make sure nobody is going to correct him. “Then we bring back the racers and any of our friends who want to come?”

“But why are we stopping there? What about the rest of the city?” Yuu blurts out. “Kenma and I have a chance to save everyone!”

Nekomata sighs. “It is better to save a few than to foolishly try to save everyone, and lose them all. That is why I escaped with Kenma, in the hopes that I could at least save him and then, in the future, he could help others.”

“But how do you know you’ll fail?” Yuu asks. “Maybe everyone can be saved.”

“No,” Nekomata says, in a tone that brooks little arguement. “You can never save everyone.”

There is a pause, and Kenma speaks. “Besides, you should only tell people you trust. If you spread it around too much, the wrong people will hear.”

Yuu nods, and just like that, fate has put him on a path back to the city. They do not leave right away, but take a few days to rest, and plan exactly what they are going to do once they reach the city. More of Yuu’s blood is taken, a little every day, and saved for the whoever leaves the city with them. Chikara says it’s bad to lose too much blood at once. He injects some of the blood into Ryuu, and tests Ryuu’s blood the next day. It’s worked, and the weight of what he can do finally hits Yuu completely.

Yuu spends most of the following days with Kenma and Ryuu. Though having Kenma around is calming, Ryuu is who brings Yuu true comfort. Being able to reach out and feel Ryuu’s warm skin under his fingertips is what really grounds Yuu. The number of times Ryuu touches Yuu’s arm or holds his hand, makes Yuu thinks that perhaps he helps Ryuu feel the same way.

The constant planning and preparing makes Yuu feel better too, like he’s useful and industrious. When Ryuu is taken away to have his blood tested, Kenma tells Yuu about the land they’re going to. He says it’s green, everywhere, that there are plants that grow up far over even the tallest person’s head. Food grows naturally from the land, water falls from the sky, and there are no flesh-eaters. It gives Yuu hope. He dreams of standing on the sandy dunes, and looking up above him to the dark, angry sky, hearing rumbling sounds and seeing flashing lights among the clouds. When he looks back down at the ground again, he finds himself standing on green plains.

Ryuu tries his best to get the racer in top condition for the trip back, but there’s only so much he can do with minimal resources and spare parts. It takes a bit of time to lift the racer into a good position for Yuu to turn it on without a frame supporting it, but they get it done, and Ryuu and Chikara get on to sit behind him. They time their departure so that the will arrive at the city in the evening, as darkness is falling. When they see a sand skipper in the distance, Yuu feels an awe at the sheer size and power of the creature, but feels no more fear than he would hold for an earthquake, or for the desert itself.

“It’s funny,” Ryuu says, “I’m not as scared of it anymore, now that I know it doesn’t want to eat me.”

Yuu laughs, smiling so wide that his face feels sore from disuse. “I was just thinking the same thing!”

They don’t encounter any flesh-eaters, and arrive at the city walls without a hitch. Yuu leads them around to an old canal exit, which was used by the drivers and their racers, back before racing was legalized. Most of the secret entrances had been found and sealed off, but not this one. His racer is left in the space below the wall, hidden from sight, and the three of them make their way into the city.

“Hey,” Ryuu says, squinting around in the gloom of late evening as he scrambles up the side of the canal. “This is my neighbourhood. Ukai’s is only a few streets over.”

“Then that must mean this is Tooru’s street!” Yuu looks around, as if suddenly someone he recognizes will pop out and greet them. “I don’t remember which house is his though.”

“Let’s head over to the Ukai’s then.”

They cut through the streets easily until they reach the familiar garage. Asahi is there, and after the shock of seeing them, he cries a little, and hugs them. He tells them that all the drivers and mechanics of the official races are still being confined to their quarters, because it’s believed they know the whereabouts of the wanted criminals, Yuu and Tooru. Tooru has been staying at the Ukai’s with his sister and nephew, after the city guards destroyed their house looking for him. Without the distraction of the city races, there have been riots in the streets. All of them were quickly put down by the guards, but the tension of rebellion still thrums through the poorer neighbourhoods.

For Yuu, the next few days pass like a blur. He is reunited with Tooru, who is angry at first, that Yuu has endangered himself by coming back, but listens as Yuu tells him, and everyone, the plan. That night, Chikara Cures Tooru, Asahi, Tooru’s sister and nephew, and both Keishin and Ikkei. The next morning, they split up to spread the word. Asahi and Keishin go to visit the imprisoned drivers and mechanics. Ryuu and Yuu disguise themselves and set out to find Alisa and her brother, and to ask her to tell any other medical officers she trusts. Some of the drivers and mechanics are hesitant, but according to Asahi, Ukai gave them such a speech about the evils of the government, he’s surprised they didn’t arrest him on the spot.

The Ukai’s home is getting a little crowded, Alisa, her brother, and Koushi have all come, along with Ryuu’s sister, Saeko. Chikara takes a little more of Yuu’s blood, as a precaution, and Cures them all.

The next day, Keishin and Ikkei go around with a list Tooru has made of family members of the drivers and mechanics, finding them and telling them. Yuu, Ryuu, and some of the others begin camping out in the canal beneath the wall, to free up space for Chikara to do his transfusions.

The drivers have negotiated with their captors, agreeing to give up Yuu and Tooru if the government affords them one last race. To help appease the populace. After all, it's not like they can escape from persecution on the racetrack. Where are they going to go? Out into the desert?


	7. The Oasis

On race day, Yuu wakes early. Ukai’s home is empty, all those escaping are camped out in the canal under the wall, ready to leave. Just outside the wall, they have four transports, stolen yesterday by Alisa and Tooru, to be driven by Keishin, Ikkei, Saeko, and Asahi. Everyone else with them will ride in the back of the transports. In those tense moments before the race starts, in the dark garage, the mechanics get on the back of the racers. They are taking the biggest risk of all, still vulnerable to infection from flesh-eaters, but there was no time to get them to Cure. They will then circle back round the city walls to meet up with the transports and Yuu’s racer.

Yuu is not too worried about the plan not succeeding, it seems sound and unlikely to fail. He’s a little worried that they don’t have enough racers and transports for the Sandstorm. Or that they won’t even make the journey. A convoy of twenty racers and four transports must be loud enough to draw the attention of every flesh-eater in the land. But the plan is set, the few family members with them have gotten into the transports and Yuu, Ryuu, and Chikara are perched on Yuu’s racer, hovering in place.

They hear the racers before they see them, and the whole company skirts round the corner, coming to a halt before them. Yuu stands up in his stirrups and waves to them, smiling brightly as he sees each of his friends, their faces smiling too. Yuu swells with pride at the trust they have all given him so quickly, and so easily. He feels a bond with each one of them that he has never dared to examine before. It is a heavy burden, but he knows that he was meant to bear it. Ryuu catches him about the waist before Yuu falls off his own racer. Nine of the drivers have a mechanic behind them, laden down with heavy bags, full of the meager belongings of themselves and two drivers.

Yuu is the one to lead them across the desert, although at one point Ryuu and Chikara have to switch places so Chikara can give Yuu directions.

Chikara says they’re over halfway there when Yuu dares to ask, “How come we haven’t seen any flesh-eaters?”

“Luck, mostly,” Chikara answers. “But Nekomata had the Sandstorm put up some diversions, old loud engines that we salvaged from the old base, and scatter some meat around, it’ll keep them occupied for hours. That’s why we had to keep to schedule so strictly. It’s a bit of a risk, wasting so much meat, in my opinion. Although I suppose it’s better than being mauled to death.”

They pass a sand skipper, and Yuu wonders if it’s the same one. Maybe it’s the only one there is. Has it always been alone, or were there once many of its kind? The others from the city seem to be getting nervous, so Ryuu shouts back at them.

“Don’t worry,” he yells, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Sand skippers are deaf!”

“Ugh, _I’ll_ be deaf if you keep that up,” Chikara mutters, and Yuu laughs at his surly tone, glancing back at the pair.

Hajime’s racer pulls up beside them, and Hajime calls over, “Is that cliff gonna be a problem, or is that where we’re going?”

“Oh!” Yuu says, looking ahead, to see the familiar cliff face rising from the horizon as they approach it. “We’re here!”

At large rock at the base of the cliff moves to reveal a staircase chipped into the rock, and one by one, each person from the city trudges up the stairs into the main cave.

Kenma and Kuroo and Nekomata are waiting for them, and make their way over to greet the group. Kuroo claps Chikara on the shoulder and they exchange a smile, and Kenma comes over to Yuu and squeezes his arms, which is probably the Kenma equivalent of a hug. Tooru, who had been in the back of a transport rushes to find Hajime, and Saeko hurries over to Ryuu, only to casually ruffle what little hair he has. Nekomata approaches Ukai Ikkei slowly, and the two men look at each other in silence. All eyes are drawn to them, as if the old men are going to break out into a brawl. Finally, Nekomata’s sly smile is seen, and the elder Ukai cracks a big grin in return, and the two men exchange a hug, along with an insult about what age has done to the other.

“Welcome,” Nekomata says, stepping back from the embrace with his old friend. “All of you, I did not realize there would be so many. But this is good. I am glad to see so many young faces. Ennoshita, please see to those who need to be Cured.”

“Alright, well, that’s everybody who was on a racer. Please come with me. Yuu? I’ll probably need more blood.”

“Coming,” Yuu says, and follows Chikara back into the quarantine room. Kenma brings Chikara his medical kit, and Alisa comes in and offers her help. Once Chikara has explained what he is doing, he and Alisa get through all thirty of them in record time. Yuu feels quite light-headed when they’re done, and goes straight to sleep. He sleeps too deeply to dream.

They do not stay in the cave for much longer, the resources not able to sustain the sudden growth in population. Nearly fifty people had come with Yuu from the city, barely a dent in the population there, but a big deal to a group of twenty desert-dwellers. So the plans to travel are sped up, and once everyone has been checked out medically, they leave.

It turns out that four transports might have been overkill, but Nekomata seems pleased to have extra. Besides him, Ukai Ikkei, and Hajime’s grandmother, all of them are young, able-bodied people, and they all help loading supplies onto the transports. Ikkei helps too, but he complains about his back the entire time.

Ryuu rides with Yuu, his arms wrapped around Yuu’s waist, and his chest solid against Yuu’s back. It is the type of restraint that makes Yuu feel safe, rather than trapped. He wants to feel like that all the time.

The journey is long, it takes days, people alternating between driving and sleeping in the back of the transports. Nighttime is a cool relief, until it becomes too cold, and they are forced to huddle beneath blankets atop their racers. It is the morning of the third day when Yuu notices that he hasn’t been seeing sand dunes around them. There is still sand of course, but it is not the dull yellow he’s used to, but more of a light brown, and the ground looks solid. At midday, the heat isn’t as unbearable. Soon, the ground looks nothing like sand at all, unmoving even in the harshest winds.

Although he feels that their destination is growing close, it’s Yuu’s slot for sleeping in the transport, so he goes, and falls asleep immediately. He dreams of being submerged in water, of sun dappling the surface, a bright and warm sun, not the harsh, unforgiving sun he knows. When he wakes, the transport has stopped.

Outside, it is like another world. Yuu has never seen so much colour in all his life. The sky is a vibrant blue, the ground covered in green grass, so unlike the dry desert grass, but soft, almost wet. What must be plants rise all around them, thick and brown with more green foliage at the top. Flowers of every colour dot the ground. The air feels cool, like a soothing balm over his skin. It’s all too vivid for him to still be dreaming.

Nekomata has brought out a folding chair and is sitting serenely in it. They must have only just arrived, because the other transports are only just emptying, the racers lowering to the ground, drivers and passengers leaping off before they tip over with no frame to support them. The others gather around Yuu in front of Nekomata, as if expecting him to give a speech. He cracks an eye open and seems surprised to see them all there.

“What?”

“I don’t understand,” Ryuu says, stepping up beside Yuu. “Are we safe out here in the open? No walls, or, or anything? What about the flesh-eaters?”

“Ah.” Nekomata raises his hand to silence Ryuu, before onerously standing from his seat. He looks around the other gathered city folks and sees a similar concern etched into their faces, clear from the pinching together of their eyebrows and the fear gleaming in their eyes. “I apologize for the lack of organization that caused you all to be left uninformed. The desert is what keeps those creatures animated. Obviously, the lack of sand means there are no sand skippers, but flesh-eaters cannot survive in such damp conditions. They decay. The dry heat of the desert delays the process, but venturing into the lush humidity of this climate would be the end of them. We are safe here from such creatures.”

Murmurs erupt in the crowd from the city, and Ryuu bends down to whisper to Yuu. “Did you know about this?”

“Kenma just told me there weren’t any flesh-eaters, he didn’t say why,” Yuu replies.

“However,” Nekomata’s reedy voice cuts through the chatter, “we are still in some danger from wild animal attacks, so we must set up camp as quickly as possible.”

With that, he lowers himself back down onto his seat slowly, his limbs creaking with age, and waves a hand dismissing the lot of them. “Do as Kuroo and Ennoshita tell you.”

As if on cue, the two Sandstorm appear, along with Kenma, and start dividing the group by task. Ryuu and most of the other mechanics are sent to get the racers and other transports under the cover of the trees. Yuu goes with Kenma, Tooru, and some of the other drivers to collect food from the land. Though Kenma and Tooru are both well-read, they are all young, and none have ever seen plants bearing food, so they are instructed not to sample anything they collect until it is deemed safe to eat by the elders.

“Oi! What about these things?” Hajime asks, he and Yui crouched around a bulbous white mound protruding from the ground. Yuu stands above them and regards the potential food with suspicion.

Tooru sweeps the long grass out of the way and strides over to them, book in hand. “Um…” His tongue pokes out of his mouth as he flips through the parchment pages. “It looks like a mushroom, I think. Pull it up?”

Hajime makes a sour face before plucking the thing out of the ground and holding it up for Tooru’s inspection. “Well?" 

“It’s definitely a mushroom. Some are edible, according to this, but others are poisonous. I can’t tell which kind that is though, so just grab a few,” Tooru says, snapping the book closed with finality. Another driver calls him over and he rushes off again.

They return to the base camp with their spoils as the sky begins to darken. Yuu’s fingers are stained black and red from picking berries, and he carries a wide-brimmed basket full of chestnuts. Beneath the green barbed husk, the shiny red-brown of the chestnut itself reminds Yuu of his old driver’s uniform, back in the city. At the thought of the city, he feels as if his heart is swelling with joy within his chest, and he stops for a moment to look up at the sky, and around at the lush greens and browns of the forest. The tall trees make him feel safe, but not trapped in like the wall did. Taking a deep breath, the air feels fresh and clear, and he smiles, raising his face once more to the darkening sky.

“Yuu?”

At Kenma’s voice, Yuu returns his eyes to the group ahead, smiling sheepishly. “Sorry, just zoning out. This place is amazing,” he says as he walks beside Kenma. “I never could have imagined a place like this. I didn’t ever think there was anything but desert!”

“I know. It’s like another world.”

The other Sandstorm have erected a main shelter by the time they get back, and other foraging groups are stowing their baskets under its roof. Nekomata and old man Ukai are inspecting everything brought in, sitting on their little fold-out stools and chatting with each other. Yuu has never seen either man in such a relaxed state.

Around the main structure, smaller cloth and wood structures are being constructed, and from beneath its shelter Yuu scans the crowds of people for Ryuu. He catches sight of a couple mechanics around a racer when a cry from Tooru distracts him.

Tooru is standing outside of the shelter, and looks up to the sky, his mouth falling open, his hands outstretched.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Hajime asks, hurrying over to Tooru’s side.

“I felt… There! There’s water falling from the sky!” Tooru keeps his eyes trained to the sky above, stretching his hands out further to catch any more drops.

Yuu steps out from under the shelter to join the many others staring up at the sky in anticipation. He feels a cold drop on his cheek and reaches up to touch his face. It’s wet. Other people around him are making the same discovery, calling out to their friends and reaching around to catch more water in their hands.

“Tch. It’s only rain,” Nekomata grumbles from beneath the shelter.

Beside him the elder Ukai laughs, making Nekomata crack a small smile of his own. “Ah, youth.”

The drops come faster now, barely having a chance to dry up on Yuu’s skin before another hits him, and he runs through the rain to find Ryuu. He passes the smiling faces of friends and strangers, all dancing about and laughing as the dark clouds above them continue to pour.

“Ryuu! Ryuu!” Yuu calls out as he finally catches sight of him amongst the trees at the edge of the clearing. “Water! From the sky! C’mon!”

Ryuu starts running to meet him, but stops short as he leaves the shelter of the trees, gaping up at the sky as water begins to hit his skin. Yuu laughs and speeds up to collide with Ryuu, wrapping his arms around Ryuu’s waist tightly and burying his face into his chest. Ryuu pushes Yuu’s arms away from him to imitate the same gesture, holding Yuu around his slim waist and lifting him up until he can’t touch the ground. His hair is getting plastered to his face by the rain, a downpour now, but Yuu smiles and laughs down at Ryuu’s own smiling face. Then Yuu kisses him, quickly and firmly, holding Ryuu’s face in his hands, and Ryuu presses back, squeezing Yuu’s waist even tighter against him. When they pull back to look at each other, Ryuu laughs again, and spins Yuu around a few times before they fall to the ground, the grassy dirt becoming wet and slippery in the rain. Yuu looks over at Ryuu, his face smeared with the sticky brown muck the ground is becoming, and can’t remember ever feeling happier, as if his heart will burst right out of his chest.

Ignoring the muck covering both of them, Yuu leans into Ryuu, and lets his eyes wander the clearing. He sees Tooru and Hajime dancing together, Hajime twirling Tooru around in the slippery grass. Yui, Asahi, and Daichi are sitting in the muck, laughing together and smearing each other with it at any chance they get. Koutarou has Kenma on his back, and keeps running and falling to his knees to slide along the ground, Keiji helping them up at the end of each run, a wide smile on his own face.

“You okay?” Ryuu asks.

Yuu realizes he has stopped smiling, so overcome with a joy he has never felt before. “Yeah. I’m just… I’m so happy.”

“Oh, good,” Ryuu says, taking hold of Yuu’s hand and squeezing it tight, a bright smile on his face. “Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wait until they see a rainbow for the first time! Thanks for reading!!


End file.
